King Of The Hill
by The Very Last Valkyrie
Summary: The perfect couple: Tripp and Serena, America's sweethearts. The perfect cover: Blair Waldorf, society bride. The perfect catastrophe: Chuck Bass, billionaire businessman. Politics or passion, it's all about who's on top.
1. Three At Least

**1. Three At Least**

_One year ago_

"Are you sure about this?" Serena asked for the twelfth time. She was impossibly beautiful, a Greek or Roman or Lagerfeld-sculpted goddess in billows of deep blue satin. Her eyes were several shades lighter but bright, their worry obvious.

"Stop fussing." Blair snapped shut her powder compact and immediately leapt back as a cloud of peachy particles swirled in the air and began to drift downwards. "I'm fine. I'm not going to let either of you down." She pursed her lips thoughtfully at her reflection in the full-length, then crossed the room to examine herself in the mirror above the vanity. Dissatisfied, she applied another layer of lipstick – a pearly nude just right for the occasion – and checked her cuffs were even.

They were.

"My wedding is being covered by every editorial in the country, my groom has been voted Most Eligible Bachelor two years in a row in two separate online polls and my dress would make Grace Kelly herself look dowdy and cheap. No bride could ask for more."

"But you don't love him."

"But you do, so we're doing this." She'd double-checked and triple-checked this life-altering, game-changing plan; there were no downsides. "And you'll have Tripp without having to be a respectable matron, and I'll chair every charity and host every luncheon and turn Maureen Krueger as green as last season's Gucci with envy. Being a socialite was good enough for Jackie O."

"You're about to promise to be faithful to one another, to bring up your children together…"

"I want three at least, just like the Kennedys."

Serena laid a hand on the Brussels lace covering her best friend's arm. To be any more affectionate would be to muss the picture-perfect image of a blushing bride Blair had spent the last three hours constructing, and that would never do. This was Blair's day as much as it was Serena and Tripp's day. This was Blair's day no matter who the groom spoke his vows to, no matter who he'd go to bed with after.

"I love you, B."

"I love you, S. Go find a seamstress to fix your hem, I'm marrying the love of your life in five minutes."

_~#~_

_Present day  
_

"Happy anniversary, sweetheart." Tripp's kiss was cool and dry, but that didn't bother Blair. His gift, chosen by Serena as usual, was the magnificent pair of diamond earrings she was now wearing. They caught the light whenever she turned her head, and it was their bold beauty that had inspired her to be daring in her dress. Although a black sheath couldn't exactly be called risqué, the velvet clung to her slender frame and bared her shoulders and décolleté. Her skin crawled pleasurably inside the luxurious fabric, and her insides fizzed from the champagne.

This was practically tripping – the pun made her giggle – by Blair Vanderbilt's standards.

"Happy anniversary." He was at least as handsome as his cousin Nate Archibald, whom she'd once dated, now speaking to their grandfather with a glass of scotch in his hand. She'd never known him to be a whisky drinker, though. Nate was in grey, sipping his drink with its single ice cube, and Tripp was in black with Grey Goose, but they both had the same hair which couldn't make up its mind between blond and brown and the same earnest blue eyes. The Vanderbilts were an insincere family, but you wouldn't know it from their looks.

"When will you make the announcement?"

"Grandfather will say a few words, remind me what a lucky man I am, that sort of thing. After that, I'll take the stage."

"Are you ready?"

"You know I am."

They were perfectly matched in ambition, that was for sure.

"Tripp." She hesitated. She didn't wish to rock the boat, not on this most important of evenings. "When you sit down to discuss your campaign with William…will you mention Yale to him?" After all, it was their anniversary. Diamond earrings played to her vanity, but nothing material would ever be equal to what he owed her. It couldn't be quantified. It could never be paid off. "I've been flipping through a copy of their course catalogue, and everything looks so interesting…" Blair broke off as her husband took both her hands in his.

"Blair, you've been everything I needed you to be this past year. You pose for every picture, you attend every benefit for horned tree frogs or elderly women with Alzheimer's or cat allergies, the public love you…I know part of the deal when we got married was that you could go to school when the time was right – but the time is not right right now. I need you by my side more than ever when I start campaigning for Congress. I know you understand that. I know you understand how essential you are to my campaign. When I'm Congressman and my approval ratings are good enough and Grandfather agrees, then you can go to Yale. That's the right decision for my career. That's the right decision for our marriage."

He was smiling that smooth, confident smile. Serena smiled that way too.

Their winning smile.

"I do understand."

"You're my biggest asset." His standard endearment.

"And your toughest critic." Her standard reply.

Blair understood, of course. She understood that, even as she watched her husband work his way through a succession of relatives and friends, he wasn't really her husband. The flesh was willing but the spirit would never be hers. There was no spark between them, and there never would be. It wasn't that she minded so much – if she'd wanted to marry for love, she would've done so, and maybe she would've been on Nate's arm tonight – as that it often got in her way, like now: Tripp, panting with gratitude, had promised her the world when she'd proposed to him. She could go to school wherever she chose, his bank account was at her disposal. She wasn't allowed affairs, but in return for her discretion about his she was wined and dined by magnates and princes, people he didn't technically even need to impress, people who'd seen the flattering, glossy photos of her he ensured were the only ones printed. As she'd said on her wedding day, no woman could ask for more.

She never asked, but she would prefer not to feel so much like a pawn sometimes; a pawn, or a dress-up doll who wore sensible heels and moved its limbs at William Vanderbilt III's request.

But now William Vanderbilt, _the_ William Vanderbilt, was mounting the small dais situated at the other end of the room between the drinks table and a cluster of older guests still eating. The Vanderbilts did everything _en famille_, and that included Blair and Tripp's anniversary dinner. They'd dined on lobster – the men had cracked the shells and talked loudly while the women had nibbled and priced up one another's outfits – but Blair hadn't eaten a bite. She was too nervous for Tripp's announcement, for the official start of the campaign that marked the official start of their ascendency. From now on, the only way was up.

And then down, if only a short way down, to New Haven.

The patriarch did indeed compliment Blair and insinuate in a jovial way that if Tripp wasn't satisfying her needs, he'd be more than happy to step in. Blair laughed along with all the rest, although she now felt more than a little itchyinside her snug dress. More of the cousins and uncles were staring at her than she would've liked, and their wives were glaring daggers. She straightened her spine. _Screw them._ This was her night, and that was her husband standing beside his grandfather and shaking his hand. His suit was immaculate and he'd changed his tie as she'd suggested. Blair was proud.

"First of all," Tripp began. "Another toast to my lovely wife, Blair." He met her gaze and grinned, and there was a chorus of coos from the observers. "Without her love, support, commitment and vision, I wouldn't be half the man I am today."

_No, you wouldn't. You'd still be grinning inanely and hosting cook-offs and meet-and-greets to try and get the proletariat to like you. _Blair smiled. _Just you wait and see what I've got planned for the polls. _'_Hudson Hero' has a nice ring to it…  
_

"In fact, I wouldn't be man enough to get up here and announce that I'm going to run for Congress."

A renewed wash of pleasure, better than sex – although that was an awkward comparison to make when Nate, whom she'd awkwardly lost her virginity to in a hotel suite after Cotillion, was silently moving towards the front. Awkwardness aside, he'd be a Congressman's wife, which was _obviously_ better than sex, because now the stares were assessing, not ogling.

She wished Serena was there. This was their triumph.

He was their husband.

But Serena wasn't the kind of person to attend a Vanderbilt family gathering, and her presence would've raised questions. Besides, she was visiting her brother Eric at Sarah Lawrence. They were probably curled up in the corner of some quaint all-hours coffee shop right now, drinking cocoa and talking about boys. There'd been a mild case of bullying early on in the term, prompting Blair to persuade Tripp into championing gay rights as one of the cornerstones of his campaign and, in fact, the gay community as one of the cornerstones of the city. She'd spoken about SoHo, but she'd meant it for Eric. People should only be picked on because of poor taste in shoes, in her opinion. And bags. And flat hair. And if they lived in post-war buildings.

Besides, both van der Woodsens agreed it was good for her to spice her coldness with compassion from time to time, especially when it advanced the Vanderbilt agenda.

Nate had climbed the steps and was standing beside his cousin and grandfather, apparently to the surprise of both. Blair doubted this: nothing ever went on that William wasn't aware of, and if his blessing hadn't been begged and bestowed, it didn't happen. She fingered one of her earrings, running the pad of her thumb along its edges.

"Blair." Nate saluted her with his glass. "You've made my cousin a very happy man, so best wishes on your one year anniversary, and may you have many more." There was a polite – but impatient – round of applause. They were all waiting for the main event and, after taking a deep breath in through his nose, Nate delivered. "As I'm single at the moment, there will be no one, with the exception of you, our family and friends, to support me when I say that I too will be running for Congress this year."

_No._

Blair gripped her champagne glass so tightly it creaked. This would change everything. Tripp wouldn't have the monopoly on being the blue-eyed, clean-cut first son of a well-known political family. Her own experience of Nate told her he came across as honest, as refreshingly straightforward but with definite charisma, as a man who meant what he said. Tripp was the same, but he lacked Nate's sob story, the white-collar cokehead father and frozen Stepford Wife mother. She fumed inwardly. This changed everything. Her dead cert could so easily end up in a dead heat, and that wasn't even taking the other candidates into account.

It was only lying alone in bed that night that Blair began to calm down. Their next move was clear: sponsors. People with clout needed to back Tripp over Nate, make him the more credible of the two, and the thing was as good as done. Nate didn't have any contacts with that kind of influence or money, or William would've backed him from the get-go instead of throwing his lot in with the winner as he was undoubtedly planning to do. After all, who would back a political virgin over his well-regarded older cousin whose wife fed the ducks in Central Park every Sunday and read to blind children?

Well, _had_ read to blind children.

Once.

The point was that no one with half a brain would choose Tripp over Nate. She'd chosen, and she was a dictator of taste.

Satisfied, Blair pulled adjusted her shell pink sleep mask and rolled over onto the cooler side of the mattress. Tripp's absence made him a cold bedfellow, and that was exactly how she liked it. Some nights, even her own body heat was enough to irritate her, and the presence of any person other than Serena would've been infuriating. There hardly needed to be a tacit agreement that she wouldn't take a lover; things had worked themselves out, as they tended to do for Blair Vanderbilt nee Waldorf.

It appeared she just naturally wasn't that way inclined.

_**~#~**_

"_That_."

The office was sparsely furnished, but plush. The books in the glass-fronted case were elegantly bound and embossed in gold, and a mini fridge concealed in a cabinet hummed discreetly. There were tasteful prints on two of the walls and a not so tasteful one on the third. The fourth was bare. The chair behind the desk was dark green leather, and the desk itself had a sheen that meant the newspaper's outlines glimmered as it hit its surface.

"That is what's going to win your cousin the campaign, Nathaniel."

Nate craned his neck to read the headline.

_Blair Waldorf: the next Jackie O? We talk to the youngest ever Mrs Vanderbilt about politics, holiday traditions and where she'll be for fashion week._

"No offence, man, but I don't think Blair can measure up to some of the sharpest legal and judicial minds in D.C."

Chuck slapped his desk with the paper again, let it go and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's the Kate Middleton phenomenon. Women want to be her, men want to undress her, and she knows it. The fashion shows she attends will be begging for her attendance every year after their profits soar. They'll send her pretty, prim outfits, and she'll button herself up to the neck so Joe Public will get a hard-on imagining unwrapping her like a Christmas present." He'd assumed his chair but got up again to pace, back and forth across the hardwood floor. "Michelle Obama. Charlene Wittstock. Eleanor Roosevelt. If you think she hasn't read _This I Remember_ from cover to cover and watched JFK get shot at least twenty times just to see the First Lady trying to put his head back together, you're delusional."

"Then what do we do?"

"This is a game of chess. You're black because white always plays first, and so did Tripp. How do you capture the king?" He let his gaze drift over to his own chessboard, where the squares were not black and white but rich honey and dark cherry. The pale king was down, alone on his side of the board while the queen had been taken and now held court off to one side, incapable of helping him.

Even with all that laid out before him, it still took Nate a good few minutes to grasp the metaphor.

"We separate him from the queen. _You_ separate him from the queen."

"What?"

"Blair and I had fun together when we were kids, but she's not going to fall for it if I suddenly start coming on to her."

"And if I, a complete stranger with no basis for a relationship with her do the same, you don't think she's going to smell a rat?"

"You'll find a way. You don't have to arrange a meet-cute and buy her flowers and candy. You don't even need to have sex with her – but Tripp needs people like you on his side." Nate slapped his hands on his knees and leaned forward, making the space intimate and the tone clandestine. "You can be my secret weapon, and I'm not talking about what you've got in your pants."

"What are you, twelve?"

"Close to Tripp is close to Blair. Between them is even better."

"You want me to plant the seed." Chuck rolled the idea around his head like a taste on his tongue.

"If she can learn to hate him, so can everybody else."

"I hope you understand the high probability of this coming back to bite you in the ass."

"Why?" Nate gave a perfect patrician shrug. "If she tracks this back to anyone, it'll be you, and what's another socialite with a grudge against the great Chuck Bass?"

"You don't seem to care very much about her feelings, considering you two dated once upon a time."

Another shrug. "I was convinced Tripp was after Serena van der Woodsen, and then he married Blair. She sharked him right out from underneath her best friend's nose, and they only dated a month before she became 'the youngest ever Mrs Vanderbilt'. She's a bitch. I mean, I doubt grandfather will appreciate the scandal, but he'll blame her and back me anyway."

"Then I'll try not to make too much of a mess."

"Go ahead. Give your readers something to enjoy with their morning coffee."

_**~#~**_

Serena cried silently into Tripp's shoulder. Her hair was tangled, and all the colour appeared to have drained from it so it shone brassy and hung limp. Her eyelids were hot, swollen and red, and her chest heaved with every subtle sob. He didn't know what to do but to put his arm around her, to stroke her back and to tell her it would be alright even though it wouldn't. Cece Rhodes was a remnant of another age, as sharp as she was glamorous and as formidable as she was fashionable, and her granddaughter resembled her far more than her own daughter, Lily; she didn't look it then, though, dressed in sweatpants no one could ever have imagined Serena van der Woodsen _owning_, let alone wearing, face blotchy and nose streaming.

"When's the funeral?"

"Saturday."

"I wish I could go."

"But you can't." She sighed. "Blair will want to pay her respects, so at least I'll have one Vanderbilt by my side. The campaign comes first."

"Speaking if that, something's come up." For her sake, he struggled to keep the excitement from his voice. "I've promised a week at the lodge to someone I'd really like to have on side. We can all go. The snow's fresh, and it's the wrong time of year for tourists. It'll do you good to get out of the city for a while, and you'll have me and Blair, and you'll feel better."

"Tripp." Serena loved him, loved his easy-going nature and fascination with her, but he wasn't his wife. He didn't understand that she wouldn't feel better, not skiing down black runs straight from the pages of a travel brochure, not even walking around her grandmother's house in the Hamptons and touching all the things she'd ever seen Cece touch. Blair's stepfather was Jewish, and Blair would've suggested they sit shiva for Cece, if only for a day. Sunday would've been spent on the bathroom floor at the Waldorf-Roses', both of them bare-faced, both of them remembering. Cyrus would've read prayers neither of them believed in but would still have been comforted by. Dorota would've brought food nobody wanted. Aaron, Serena's ex-boyfriend and Blair's stepbrother, would've dropped by as he did every weekend and awkwardly expressed his condolences.

Instead, she'd would be toasting marshmallows and having sex in front of the fire while her best friend went to bed alone.

"That sounds great," she murmured. His shoulder was shrouded in navy blue wool, and it smelt of cologne. She loved him, of course she did. She'd never have asked so much of Blair if she wasn't one hundred percent certain – although Blair had offered, and Serena never would've asked.

And it wasn't as if Blair didn't get anything out of the arrangement.

"S."

They were in the second largest bedroom which had striped wallpaper and light bleeding across the floor from the bedside lamp. Blair paused in the doorway, unsure of her reception. Her bare feet were pale lilac, and her robe was black.

"We're going skiing," was all Serena could think of to say.

"We?"

"You, me, Tripp and a possible sponsor."

Seeing this as an invitation, Blair came into the room proper and perched on the other side of her friend, on the other side of the mattress to her husband. She didn't look at Tripp or Serena, only reached out for her hand and pressed it between both of her own. Serena stared down at her nails: they were pearly with pristine white tips.

"I heard you on the phone with Lily. I'm so sorry."

"Will you come to the funeral?"

"Of course. I thought we'd go early to help your mother on Saturday morning, but we don't have to go to the wake if you don't feel up to it. Whenever you're ready to leave for the lodge, the car will be waiting with our bags to take us to the airport. We can be settled in by dinnertime, and Tripp and our guest can drink cognac and discuss the campaign while you and I have an evening in. You won't mind keeping – him? – amused for a few hours on your own, will you?"

"Him," Tripp affirmed, apparently as absorbed by his wife's manicure as his girlfriend was. "And no, not for one night. But after that I expect you to be on hand at all times, Blair. I've promised him whatever he wants while he's with us, whenever he wants it. If we deliver –"

"Then so does he. I won't let you down. I won't let either of you down."

After a moment's pause, Serena raised her head. "What's his name, this someone you'd really like to have on side?"

"It's the editor of the New York Spectator, Chuck Bass. He owns the paper outright, as well as the Bugle, the Herald, the Yell…"

"And every other tabloid fit for toilet paper." A frown appeared on Tripp's forehead at her words, and Blair immediately regretted them. She took his hand, even at the cost of deepening the frown, and got to her feet. "Serena should rest. We can talk about Chuck Bass over breakfast tomorrow. Didn't he go to Saint Jude's with your cousin?" She continued speaking until the door had closed behind them, then let him go. They eyed one another with interest, with respect but without softness. They were cut and dry, cold and clean. She would never cry on his shoulder and he would never hope she would.

"Blair…"

"Don't worry about her." Blair was brisk as she refastened her robe. "The fact is she hasn't got enough willpower to grieve for long, and distraction will speed up the process. The two of you can ski and drink hot chocolate and whatever else you plan to do to your hearts' content, and I'll take care of Chuck Bass. It never works when the three of us are in the room together. It's the way the two of you orient yourselves, or the charged silences." She looked younger than her twenty years in the dim hallway, hair tumbling around her shoulders in a riot she never would've allowed during the day. "I'll handle him, you handle her." And even though it had only been a few days since their anniversary dinner, Blair decided to push her luck. "And when we get back, with Bass' support secured…we'll compare notes on Yale again?"

In response, Tripp kissed her cheek. It was even more impersonal and meant less than their party kiss, for all it was meant to be placatory.

"You know Grandfather will be the one to make that decision."

"And I know you can sway him."

"I'm not saying yes," he warned.

"No." She was already walking away from him, distractedly rubbing at the gooseflesh on her arms. "But you're not saying no."

_Not yet, anyway._

Once inside her room, the key turned for no reason other than that was what she was used to, Blair imagined a tickle in her throat. She popped two NyQuil and screwed green foam plugs into her ears to block out any sounds from down the corridor.

She slept better that way.


	2. Women In Black

**2. Women In Black**

Lily was clutching her wine glass, still gracious but obviously grieving. Sadness had begun to eat away at the flesh of her cheeks, and she looked drawn; Blair pressed food on her every time she passed, from buttered prawns to petit fours to the dainty salmon and cucumber sandwiches caterers seemed to reserve only for funerals, in case anything more than the tiniest measure of carbs was too much to swallow. After Serena's mother had had a few small bites, Blair gave up and went to stand by the door with her daughter.

Even today, Serena couldn't seem to resist showing off her assets – she was far more of a trophy wife than Blair in her slinky, one-shouldered number, at gorgeous odds to her friend's knee-length black shift dress and bolero. Blair had pearls in her ears and around her neck, and they were of just the right size and colour for her status. Hands had brushed hers as they took the order of service at the church, but eyes had lingered on Serena, even though her own were red-rimmed. Blair was used to that: if it wasn't Tripp, it was somebody else.

If it wasn't somebody else, it was Blair herself, wishing that glamour and those few significant inches of height were hers.

She straightened her spine and bit colour into her lower lip. Her own grandmother, after all, was a contemporary of Cece's who'd climbed even further up the social ladder. Beatrice Gansevoort had been escorted to cotillion by William Vanderbilt, the Grandfather himself, and William Vanderbilt had knocked down Henry Buck for kissing his date, and Henry Buck and Beatrice Gansevoort had married and become the toast of New York society in their own special, sardonic way. Serena may have a shiny nose and a glossy coat, but Blair had a pedigree as long as her arm and more blue ribbons for charitable acts than she could count.

Better than glamour, she had _class_.

Serena was Marilyn Monroe, fairest of them all, but Blair was Jane Russell, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and the Vanderbilt diamond glittered on her left hand. Her reputation was snow white, and her recipe for pumpkin pie had been featured in Good Housekeeping earlier that month.

To her astonishment, Nate appeared before her, smiling his greeting in an appropriately subdued manner. He leaned forward to brush his lips against Blair's cheek, and she hissed, "What are you doing here?"

His blue gaze was guileless. "I came to pay my respects to Serena and her mother." Either he knew something and wasn't letting on, or he was observant enough to realise that Serena was in no mood for kisses. Instead, he shook her hand gently but firmly before heading towards Lily. Blair couldn't abide a limp handshake, which was why she was almost glad Tripp had to kiss her. Kisses on cheeks and foreheads seemed far more impersonal than the press of palm against palm, feeling the warmth – or lack thereof – of somebody's skin.

Serena was more interested in Nate's presence, however, than her friend's assessment of greeting styles. "Did you invite him?"

"Of course I didn't."

"Do you think he's really just here to offer his condolences?"

"Of course not."

"Then why?"

"He's making a move," Blair said shrewdly. She had no idea what it was yet, but Nate was starting to pop up with alarming regularity, considering she'd only seen him sporadically at family gatherings over the past year.

But Nate behaved like a gentleman for the hour he stayed, exiting with the last few guests Lily escorted to the elevator so the last few kisses and wishes could be given. There was too much food left on the long buffet table, and it was horrible to look at – as if they'd thrown a party for Cece and she hadn't come. Both van der Woodsen women teared up, which Blair considered a good sign: at least they were grieving. She snapped her fingers at caterers and orchestrated the clearing away of plates and glasses, then the removal of the table. Only once the room had been sent to rights and they'd all had a good half glass of wine did she take Serena's hand.

"Will you be alright, Lily?"

Eric's flight, delayed by a storm, would only be getting in later that night, and his mother would be alone until then. Nevertheless, she nodded, and stood to kiss her daughter. "Have a safe journey. Promise me you'll enjoy yourselves."

It had been kindly meant, even though Lily knew some of the truth and why both of them were going. Blair didn't feel herself enough to lie.

"Tripp loves the mountains," she said instead.

The elevator appeared, and Vanya the doorman appeared. In their world, even grief was timed with military precision. There would always be cars waiting, planes to catch. The youngest Mrs Vanderbilt was the deadliest Mrs Vanderbilt in that regard, her composure intact, her makeup safe from tears and splotches, her outdoor coat thick enough to take her onto the runway and across the country without the need to change. She knew what was expected of her, and she knew what to expect of others. Serena would shake off her sadness the moment they were out of New York airspace. Running – or flying, in this case – was what she did best, and Tripp and Blair and Chuck Bass, whatever kind of person he turned out to be, had done everything possible to accommodate her.

Things usually went that way for Serena.

Once they were installed on the town car's leather seats with the heater going full blast, Serena dropped her head onto Blair's shoulder and shut her eyes, and Blair chastised herself for thinking badly of her on that day. She wadded up her jealousy and put it away, then closed her eyes too. _Yale_, she told herself, and spent a pleasant half hour being selfish. Serena and Tripp could come down alternate weekends and spend the intervening time together, and Blair could Skype with the ladies on her various committees, study art history and other things that didn't matter, dress for herself and take walks alone and watch fall turn the entire campus golden.

And all Tripp had to do was become Congressman.

_**~#~**_

It was snowing when they finally got in, and they three crossed the threshold together, their arms around each other. By New York standards, the lodge was a cottage, which only meant six bedrooms, and the entire ground floor was open plan. The beams in the roof were exposed, and there was a skin of some kind in the entryway. A fire was blazing in the massive fireplace, and Blair's teeth were chattering.

"They've put your cases in the blue room," Tripp informed her, which was his way of saying that he and Serena would be in the master suite. "Why don't you go up and take a shower before our guest arrives?" Which was his way of saying that she was flushed, that her hair was wet from melting snow and that he wanted time alone with her friend.

Blair focused on the beams, the mauve twilight coming in through the skylight and shut her ears against their whispering as she climbed the stairs. She hoped to God they didn't have sex on anything she might want to sit on later.

The blue room had a shower stall big enough for three, but the pipes wheezed and coughed hot water rather than spraying steadily. Blair still stayed in for at least twenty minutes, shampooing and conditioning her hair, then combing it through with the hot oil treatment that kept it shiny and the ends neat. She lathered up a loofah and began distractedly to scrub at her arms, mentally going through her wardrobe and deciding what to wear for dinner. Tripp had thwarted her plans for a quiet evening with Serena by announcing it would be rude to keep Chuck Bass in suspense by hiding themselves away until the next day; she could dress to seduce, impress or outshine, but she couldn't imagine what one would wear to woo a sponsor. Sighing at the possibility she might be politely prompted to go back upstairs and change, Blair cleared a patch of the steamed up glass and squinted at her watch, which she'd placed on the side of the sink.

But there was someone else in the bathroom, and she shrieked and leapt away from the clear section, banging her elbow painfully into a section of pipe.

"Close your eyes!" Blair commanded, since that seemed to be of the utmost importance just then. He duly did, and she exited the stall, seizing a robe from the back of the door and wrapping it tightly around her. "Who are you?" She snapped. "And more importantly, what kind of sick pervert are you?"

He couldn't have been there more than a minute, since his skin wasn't damp from the steam. A pale grey overcoat was buttoned to his chin, his hands were encased in black leather gloves, and he'd tried very hard to brush his hair back from his temples. It hadn't worked, and a dark comma fell across forehead. His face was all angles, nothing smoothed into prettiness except his mouth. That was pretty, she supposed, since it had a definite curve to it.

"Along what guidelines would you like me to define my perversion?" He asked. His voice was a rasp, low-pitched, insolent even though it was he who was intruding.

"What are you doing in here?"

"I got lost, obviously."

"Where, on your way to my underwear drawer?"

"Unless your underwear drawer contains a bed and a bathtub, no. I was trying to find the guest suite and thought it would be better not to ask for your help until you were done showering, in case I startled you and caused you to slip."

"How gentlemanly of you."

"It was, wasn't it?" His tone grew less civil. "Look, I didn't see anything. All I want is to go to my room and lie down before dinner. Playing Peeping Tom for china dolls such as yourself isn't one of my turn ons, which you would know if you read GQ."

"You're Chuck Bass," she surmised, which he took as his cue to look. His gaze drifted first across her bare shoulders first, since he was a voyeur, no matter what anyone said to the contrary. It was lighter than her deep brown, warmer, black gold and not at all repentant. This was the man she was supposed to be wooing, a man who regarded her like he had to price her up for auction. Struggling to get hold of her temper, which was rising rapidlt, Blair extended her hand without a word.

"The pleasure's all mine, I'm sure." He took off his glove to shake, pressed his palm to hers and curved his fingers around to envelop her smaller digits. The pressure was firm enough for a handshake between men, which didn't make up for his calculating stare or her ruffled feathers.

"I'm Blair Vanderbilt."

"I know." He was still holding her hand.

"Dinner is at eight."

"I know." And he was insufferable.

"Then you'll know your way out."

Blair refused to even glance in his direction as she snatched back her hand and walked out of the bathroom, straight through her bedroom and into the walk-in closet. It was only as the door closed softly behind him that she swore – how the Hell was she going to explain why she was staying alone in one of the guest bedrooms? Her panic only lasted for a few seconds, however, since she swiftly began to perform the breathing exercises from a hot yoga class she'd once taken and concentrated. She'd explain that she snored sometimes, which was fine in the city, but here Tripp had to be up early in order to be the first one on the slopes. She didn't want to disturb him.

For dinner, Blair wore navy blue, as close to black as she could get, and the diamond earrings Tripp had given her for their anniversary. She pulled the seams on her stockings straight and watched her pupils contract to points in the mirror. They may have been doe-eyed and dilated while she unwound in the shower, but now she was wound tight and determined. Her mouth was red and fierce. Tonight would go off without a hitch, and Chuck Bass would fall in love with every word that passed her husband's lips, and she would be smiling, scraping, the perfect hostess, and the matter of separate bedrooms wouldn't even cross his mind.

Her palm tingled and her elbow throbbed.

She slammed shut her underwear drawer with unnecessary force.

He hadn't dressed appropriately for dinner, but somehow gave the impression it was they who were in the wrong. Tripp's cable-knit sweater and khakis were far more suitable than Chuck Bass' double-breasted jacket, his pinstriped shirt, his dark red bowtie and boutonnière. Serena was underdressed, but that was her way, and no one commented on her leggings and bare feet beneath the table. Blair had chosen Jason Wu because the First Lady liked him, and if it was good enough for Michelle then it was definitely good enough for her. She was cutting her salad a little too savagely, producing crisp sounds of protest.

"Your feelings on freedom of the press?"

"I have no problem with it. You've always published very flattering things about my family."

"And if I were to start searching your wife's closet for skeletons instead?"

"As if Blair would be stupid enough to leave evidence lying around," Tripp answered jovially, and they all laughed. A server lent from the resort further down the mountain cleared away their plates, and another came in to deliver the next course. He had curly black hair and lingered too long staring at Serena. Blair raised her eyebrows a fraction, and he coughed self-consciously and left. She made a mental note to withhold his tip.

The meal continued with much chatter, although Blair's side of the conversation was reserved to responding to Tripp and Serena. She tried not to make it obvious that this were so, prodding her husband to turn to Chuck and ask the questions that needed to be asked and reminding Serena of certain incidents which led to certain anecdotes which were reliably amusing. They all believed it was flowing organically, while Blair's fingers twitched like she was pulling puppet strings and she couldn't help but fidget. Finally, Chuck's unwavering focus on her, on her twitching, on her plate drew her eyes upwards. She met his eyes reluctantly, lips pursed. He smirked.

"Don't you like oysters, Mrs Vanderbilt?"

"Blair," she said sweetly, and then continued, not sweetly at all, "They're fashionable and expensive, and Tripp enjoys them." Her side plate was covered in crumbs, a dinner roll twisted to pieces. "But I suspect they're nothing more than common salt water, just pretending."

"But your husband enjoys them," he pressed.

"They're a great aphrodisiac." Serena and Tripp choked in unison. Blair let out a little laugh. "Oh, don't be silly. As if I'd talk dirty in public."

"But in private?"

Her smile – not directly at him, more in his vague direction – was bland, but her look – about as subtle as a bullet to the head – was icy. "As if I'd talk dirty to you at all."

"Blair!" Tripp took a hurried sip of wine. "You'll give Chuck the wrong impression."

"I know everything there is to know about your wife anyway," Chuck told him coolly. "And I understand that she's tired from the flight and bound to be tense. Most well-bred women are when they're unable to sleep in their own beds." She blanched. He was going to mention the separate bedrooms, wasn't he, that – "I have no doubt Mrs Vanderbilt will feel much better in the morning." He took a sip of Veuve Clicquot, the vintage his 'well-bred' hostess had chosen to compliment the oysters. She resented being informed what she was feeling and why, but was satisfied that her earlier assessment had been correct: Chuck Bass was an impolite, insensitive, chauvinistic journalist, which meant he was exactly the same as all the other male journalists she'd ever met. He was nothing special, no matter how much money he had. He was her polar opposite.

For the second time that day, Blair reflected on her own pedigree, and smirked in spite of herself.

He caught her and winked.

She stopped.

_**~#~**_

Blair stayed up watching, crouched in front of her door, peering through the gap. A casual observer might've taken her paranoia for jealousy, but she wasn't being casually observed; she was making sure that Serena got to Tripp's room undisturbed. Had it been only the three of them, they could've gone up to bed together with no raised eyebrows, but then there would have been no reason for the trip, no mulled wine, no romantic ambience.

Serena crept past at one o'clock, her nightgown fluttering around her thighs. Tripp's door opened, there was a moment of murmuring and then she was inside. Blair sat back on her heels, satisfied.

But another door opened as that one closed, at the other end of the hall, even more surreptitiously. She sat back up and pressed closer to the gap.

Chuck was moving slowly and silently down the hallway, careful with his step placement on the hardwood floor, pressing down the ball of his foot and then the heel, padding like a thief across the heirloom rugs. His dark hair was tidy, as if he'd prepared for a midnight rendezvous instead of a black ops mission in the hope of red hot gossip. She wondered what he hoped to discover: her and Tripp having sex perhaps, him contorted into a strange position while she worked him over with a two-by-four and a fluffy bunny toy? They two and Serena engaged in an amicable _ménage a trois_ like in that movie they'd seen last week, the one about that girl and the drug dealers? Cocaine snowdrifts?

As he passed, she stood and swung the door open. The edge caught him painfully on the back of the ankle, and he hopped on the dpot for a few seconds before turning back to glare at her.

"Why, Mr Bass." Blair's voice was smoother than silk. "What on earth are you doing up at this time of night?"

He examined her in silence, then seemed to swallow his irritation and replied, "I wanted a glass of milk. I was headed for the kitchen."

She clicked her tongue. "Lost again? Today's not your lucky day."

"It might be my lucky night, if you'll point me in the right direction."

"I can do better than that." She wasn't going to let him off that easily, and stepped out into the hall too. Her floral pyjamas fell to ankle and wrist, and while his silk robe had a touch of Hefner about it, they were both decent. Serena and Tripp, however, probably weren't, so she ushered him along in front of her as they descended the staircase to the ground floor, the rail perfectly polished and safe for fingers although the rest of the finish was rustic and splintery.

The kitchen floor was tiled black and white and the sub-zero refrigerator hummed unobtrusively. Blair, who'd once had to shoot a segment on comfort food and her preferred methods for putting tired politicians to sleep, lit the stove and selected a cleaver.

"Are you going to bury that between my shoulder blades?"

"Only cowards attack from behind," She used the point of the knife to slice a vanilla pod and free its seeds. Once that was done, she poured a cup's worth of milk into a pan and set it on the flame, adding vanilla, cinnamon and a teaspoonful of something extra.

"What's that?"

"Chilli." And she hoped he choked on it. "Excellent protection against coughs and colds."

He was sitting at the breakfast bar, elbows propped on its gleaming surface. Blair concentrated on what she was doing, ignoring her peripheral view of his gaze flicking up and down her form and back up again. The matronly pyjamas weren't enough for one as depraved as him. She should've worn a burka to prepare his goddamn milk.

"This should help you sleep." The glass came down between them with an emphatic _clink_, and Blair forced herself to take the stool on the other side of the bar and sit facing him. She had to be more than civil, she had to be delightful, and as accommodating as possible if he were to be accommodating with his money. It didn't help that he eyed her the way the uncles and cousins had at her anniversary dinner, only his voyeurism was constant, no matter what she was wearing. She'd done her research, so she knew about him and wives, about him and celebutantes, about him and three of the Victoria's Secret angels in one hotel room. She also knew that she had to keep him downstairs long enough for one of the lovers to come to their senses and lock the door, so her scruples could wait. Blair twirled her wedding ring round and round her finger, the platinum warm, the gesture habitual.

Chuck stared at that too.

"Aren't you thirsty?"

"You don't like me, do you?" He sipped his milk. "That's incredibly arrogant, considering I've been in your house less than twenty four hours."

"I don't not like you."

"You're a good liar too. Excellent poker face."

"I'm not lying."

"It doesn't surprise me that the wife of a politician, a social politician herself, should be a good liar. What does surprise me is how much smarter you are than him." Blair drew in her breath, but he continued, "You're attractive, so I expected you to be an idiot with a five hundred dollar haircut and too many strings of pearls. The quip about the oysters was well done, and then you shut up rather than show off your wit any longer. That was even smarter."

She protested immediately. "You're my guest, and I was being unforgivably rude. I was tired –"

"Girls like you are always tired." He was rasping a little more as the night wore on, a little less cultured, a little more frank. "You walk around in five inch heels all day, how could you not be tired? You get up at six for low fat yoghurt and spinning classes, and go to bed at midnight after chairing charities and attending galas. You weren't rude because you were tired. You were rude because you think you're better than I am."

That opening, she couldn't resist.

"Aren't I?"

"More innocent. More well-regarded by women between the ages of fifteen and forty-five."

"I am not innocent!" Blair protested, realised he was trying to get something juicy out of her and calmed herself down with difficulty. "I'm a married woman."

"You're a child. You showed off the big words you like to say and how you like to say them, and then you played at being a housewife so I'd give you a good school report to take home to your parents."

Blair was torn between being cold and hot, with anger, at his patronising tone. She tugged down her cuffs to hide her hands, another habit, and stood up. "You print the big words you like to say," she snapped. "And how you like to say them is loudly, even if they aren't true. You think you're something special because you screw a few models and you walk a few red carpets, but the only reason people recognise your name is because it's underneath the headline in large font." She lowered her eyelids as if the idea wasn't to her taste, not even condescending to disregard him directly. "And you come into my home and act as if you know me, when you don't know the first thing."

"I know the first thing."

"And what is that?"

"He's holding you back," Chuck said simply, apparently without venom. "You could be running your own newspaper if Tripp didn't need you as his figurehead, your own fashion house. How can you care about someone who asks that of you, to bite your tongue when you want everyone to know just how clever you are, to converse politely with the dregs of society instead of taking them down as you blatantly so want to?"

"It's called love." She spoke the word haughtily, with none of the usual sadness under her breastbone that didn't have so much to do with Tripp as with Blair herself, as with Yale, as with how awkward 'love' had been with Nate. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"He loves his country more than he loves you."

"He pledges allegiance to the flag daily, he pledged himself to me only once." She turned away and ran the cold water, standing to sluice out the pan without really understanding why she was doing it instead of leaving it for the cleaning staff. "I would expect nothing less." Blair's night time perfume of face cream and deep conditioner had been overlaid with a sweet spiciness, a creaminess, and she regretted putting the chilli in his milk. Let him contract pneumonia and die, let frostbite eat his fingers and toes. "Goodnight, Mr Bass."

"You don't like me," he repeated. "But you don't like your husband either."

"Goodnight, Mr Bass."

As she left, Blair flipped the light switch and plunged him into darkness.

She really hoped he walked into something on his way back upstairs.

* * *

**_Happy belated birthday to Isa, and thanks to: _aliceeeebeth, Guest, eckomoon, Lalai, Nikki999, sunshineboogie, Playmesomething, dreamgurl, blackrose . forever, SaturnineSunshine, Jane, stardustshop, fiona249, Dr. Holland, Freckles929, Eternally Romantic, Rf, SassySuzy84, Trosev, Tess, Rach, thepluot, Arazadia, Holyhead Harpies, stacie . xoxo, ButlerBassandSalvatore, salbaby, Grish, Chairfan1990, Dimples84, Guest _and_ Inds. _Welcome to the jungle._  
**


	3. Get Your Gun

**3. Get Your Gun**

Blair drank breakfast in silence, green juice which made her skin glow even as she glared. There was bacon, eggs, bagels, French toast, croissants, fruit and a selection of jams and jellies she'd gotten up early to arrange herself – last night's cater waiter wasn't going to get a peek at Serena in her nightgown or a job with the Vanderbilts again, Blair had seen to that – but a cleanse would do both her temper and her colon good. She knew she was being irrational, that she'd been dealing with men who rated their charms too highly since she'd first developed breasts; perhaps it was that she'd been so ready to accommodate him, to show her best side and reel off quote after quote for his readers.

Like her mother Eleanor, Blair always sent questions ahead and made it clear what she wouldn't talk about. It was Chuck Bass' tendency to go off-script which she found most provoking, second only to his tendency to be where he shouldn't at all hours of the day and night. He had no obvious bruises, so presumably he hadn't tripped over anything in the dark after she'd left him.

She still held out hope he'd gone groin-first into a door handle, but no man would be smirking like that if he'd been blackballed. Or if he had black and blue –

"Blair." Tripp turned to his wife, laying a hand tenderly over hers. She fought the urge to stiffen with surprise and instead wrapped her fingers around his, making the gesture appear habitual. Serena looked on, and Blair wished she'd learn to control her expression. "How long will it take you to get ready, sweetheart? I can't wait to get out on the slopes."

"You do love your black runs," she said, with a good imitation of fondness. She was genuinely fond of him sometimes, but her stomach was growling and protesting the juice and Chuck Bass was eating their exchange up with his almost exotic eyes. He was ugly, she decided, then and there. The pretty mouth and slanting eyes and bold jaw didn't make him handsome so much as striking, a person you might stare at if you saw him across the room at a party. Blair had stared, but people stared at unfortunates all the time, after all, and she was only human. Her objection to him extended even to his damp hair and cashmere sweater, more suitable for the locale than his suit of the night before but still an absurd shade of lilac.

To Tripp, she promised, "No more than an hour, darling. S and I need to check last season's suits fit, and if so then we shouldn't be very long at all."

"Last season?" Chuck let out a low whistle. He was wearing a speckled shirt beneath his sweater, flecks of plum on white. "Mrs Vanderbilt, you do surprise me. And disappoint me, as it happens."

"I bet you say that to all the girls – or is that what they say to you?"

Blair immediately bit her tongue. What was wrong with her? More importantly, why did he seem even more goddamn superior that he had to begin with? And why was he wearing so much purple?

"Come on, S. The case with the boots is in your bedroom."

"What is wrong with you?"

Hallway, stairs, door: privacy.

"Why are you acting like this?"

Black boots, brown boots, grey boots: Blair's boots. She removed the thick socks tucked inside and pulled them on, tucking in her padded leggings and twisting the seams straight. Then she set to work on the snaps of the boots, one of which caught her finger painfully.

"He's rude."

"Tripp needs him."

"Tripp can do better."

"Can he? On such short notice? With Nate hosting fundraisers left, right and centre? Or haven't you been reading the papers?"

"These fit," Blair announced, loosening the laces and sucking absently on her cut. "And of course I read the papers, Serena. It's going to take more than ice skating with orphans to win the public over, and if it didn't then I'd be back in New York by now, baking pies for the widows of servicemen. There is _nothing_ –" She stressed the word in an even lower voice than before, making measured movements to left and right as she gathered up the necessaries of a day on the slopes, giving no sign she could even sweat or fret or doubt that her everything would happen just as she'd planned it. "More important than Tripp becoming Congressman."

"You've dealt with jerks like Chuck Bass before," Serena pointed out, tying back her hair without even glancing in a mirror and still managing an angelic effect. She was radiant in her white ski suit, its fur trim like downy wings. This was Blair husband's mistress, but it was impossible for her to be a dirty mistress in dark lip liner and leather skirts; she didn't have it in her. "What's different this time?"

_Do you think I haven_'_t been asking myself that question_? "Could you find my hemp cream? I don't want to crack and peel like a fresco in front of our guest."

Her friend sighed. "Of course, B. Is it in your wash bag?"

She knew where that was because Blair kept condoms in her wash bag, and kept her wash bag in the bottom compartment of her smallest suitcase. She went out of her way to facilitate Serena and Tripp, to make this impossible _ménage a trois _marriage possible, to suggest red or black or no lingerie, to look the other way when they looked at each other. In this, as in all things, she was a master. Serena also knew she was a master at schmoozing, when she wanted to be, and she should definitely want to be when Chuck Bass' support meant so much and they were all in such close confines, with secrets were bound to come out. She tried a different tack.

"But you need to keep Chuck busy, if only because it'll keep him focused on you and not on Tripp and I. I'm sure you can handle it. You do it so beautifully with everyone else."

Serena may have been a Vanity Fair cover girl, but Blair was Vogue – frosty, elegant, inscrutable.

"Fetch my cream, would you? And you can leave Chuck to me. These non-conformist emotions of mine will pass, likr they always do. Tripp is all that matters. Correction: you and Tripp are all that matters." She drew the sting of the comment with a burst of laughter, cold and clear like the mountain air.

Like the air, it could've stripped skin.

But Blair stopped laughing, and Serena went to get her cream, and they were all out on the slopes in under an hour because Blair had promised Tripp, and his best interests were hers, and the ring on her finger told her so.

The cable car was reserved for VIPs only, those who lived in the lodges above the resort that cost more than a normal person's life savings. An attendant in a black puffa jacket opened and closed the door, and Blair sat next to Tripp while Serena took the seat opposite him. Unfortunately, this meant that the only available space was opposite Blair. Chuck's legs brushed hers as he sat down. She ignored him, ignored his red and black coat and the way tufts of his hair were sticking up from walking there against the wind. She pillowed her cheek on her hand and gazed out of the window, refusing to let her back so much as touch the sheepskin cushioning of the chair. Hillary Clinton wouldn't slouch, not even if the woman her husband did _not_ have sexual relations with and a journalist with no manners were on vacation with them halfway up a mountain. Hillary had loved her husband, anyway, not the woman he was with, whereas it was the other way round for Blair.

His right knee knocked against her left.

She ignored it.

Again.

She ignored it.

Chuck didn't stop trying, and slid his foot beneath hers, raising it so the heel stayed where it was but the toes of their boots touched. She shot a glare in his direction but didn't linger long enough to meet his gaze. The meaning was clear, though: _I_'_m not going to play footsie with you_, _and whatever game you're playing_,_ it isn_'_t footsie_. Blair wasn't that kind of politician's wife, and he wasn't a pretty face in any case. Her hostess duties didn't extend to the games fifteen year olds played underneath the table on a first date, right before the particularly low-rent ones got on their knees underneath the table and changed the rules.

The powder was perfect, and it would receive her full attention, no matter how hard he planned to flirt with her.

Near the top of the mountain, oxygen levels were low, and they all panted as they strapped on their skies and pulled on goggles and gloves and stretched. Serena braced herself at the top of the run, disappearing into the vista in all her white. She pushed off, already laughing, as Chuck came up behind Blair and hovered uncomfortably close. His breath was warm on the back of her neck, then on her cheek, and faintly scented with cinnamon; she wondered for a bizarre moment if he had Red Hots in his pocket.

Tripp waved, and she applauded as he began his descent.

"I don't appreciate your pathetic efforts to charm me," she informed the interloper standing behind her as soon as her husband was safely out of earshot. "You know how valuable you are to Tripp's campaign, and you know because of that I'll do anything to oblige you."

"But you won't be charmed by me."

"Anything _proper_."

"Fine. You can oblige me with a skiing lesson."

There was a flurry around her feet as she turned. ""Didn't anybody teach you how to ski?"

His lip curled. It was maybe the first time he hadn't seem amused by her dislike for him, probably brought on by her rejection of his playground-style seduction technique. "I suppose your father taught you."

"I suppose your father was too busy running his business empire to teach you."

Chuck lowered his eyelids and looked at Blair from beneath them, as if to look at her properly would be a waste of his energy. "And that's the way you think it should be, isn't it? Nine to five, the right man for the right job and nothing and no one standing in his way."

"How do you think it should be?"

"I think how it is: that real men of power have women standing beside them, not behind them."

And Blair couldn't stand to me there anymore, in his presence, up there where he was closer to the summit then she was, higher up, of greater value, being patronised and breathing the same fragrant air. "Break a leg," she managed, head on one side, smile an insincere slash of colour. "That's not a suggestion."

Skiing was fleeing but felt like flying – but he was only seconds behind her. She sailed off the edge of an artificial slope and he followed, landing elegantly at her side and criss-crossing her trails with his own. She could see the speck that was Tripp and the trails that meant Serena and sped up, aware that she was going too fast, aware that she was being ridiculous, aware that racing like this was as immature as he was, but she was _better_: she didn't need money to make people like her, she didn't need the power to make or break a name. She, Blair, was worth more than being condescended to by a _nouveau riche_ Basshole who skied like a Scandinavian and had pretended he couldn't.

"Slow down," he shouted, over the howl of the wind.

Blair didn't. She weaved around and through a clump of trees, cleared a rise and twisted in the air like a ballerina. Coming back to earth made her bones rattle but she didn't pause, not until she'd reached a plateau and Tripp and Serena were too far down to spot.

"Are you out of your mind?!" Chuck halted in front of her in a spray of snow. "This is a black run with fresh snowfall, and you're showing off for a man who isn't even watching!"

"I wasn't showing off!" Blair retorted. Nothing wittier seemed to want to come to mind.

"You were trying to prove something."

"I was not!"

"You hit the ground hard after that last jump," he countered. "And you could've hurt yourself, and maybe you have hurt yourself, since you're favouring your left leg, and the only reason for you to do that would be to prove that you're not behind anyone, that no one tells you what to do or how to live your life, when the fact is your fool of a husband says jump, and you don't even have to inquire as to how high!" Chuck drew close to her again, and gripped her right forearm. She gripped his in return, which was actually a relief, since her right leg was shaking, and debated 'accidentally' digging her nails in. "That's how good you are. That's how well-bred you are. That's what Constance Billiard and long weekends in Paris and summers in the Hamptons trained you for. You're perfection." Blair shivered imperceptibly when he said that. The cold was creeping inside her clothes now she was still. "And you save none of that talent for yourself."

"You don't know what you're talking about." It was meant to be louder, firmer. "You don't know me."

He sighed. "Let me help you down."

"I don't need your help."

"Then why are you still holding my hand?"

He'd pulled away a little as they spoke, and now she was clutching his gloved fingers, hers fitting into the gaps between, wobbling like Bambi on ice and hating it.

"I'd rather read Fifty Shades of Grey than ask for your help."

"Do. You might learn something."

_**~#~**_

Moonlight Sonata was the most overused piece of piano music in history, in Blair's humble opinion. Her leg was stretched out before her, supported by an ottoman, and feeling much better. She'd been sitting alone with her book in the light of the dying fire, too comfortable to get up and put on more wood, too lazy even to air her views on the subject of the music. The notes were soft and resonant, and expertly played; although she objected to Chuck intruding on her solitude, there were worse things he could do than play the piano.

She watched him when her book finally defeated her, when she was floppy and half-asleep and the words began to swim. He played deliberately, neither too fast, to prove his prowess, nor too slow. She had no idea why he was playing, or if he even knew she was there. She doubted it was for her pleasure.

Serena arrived halfway through, and Tripp ten minutes afterward. They were both flushed, and Blair looked away, tracing the glossy curves of the grand piano she wasn't sure she'd seen anyone play before today. Serena sat down beside her and played idly with Blair's hair, adding to the generally drowsy air of the room. Then, she said, "I found some absinthe at the back of the liquor cabinet today."

"So?"

"So Never Have I Ever, B."

Blair groaned, suddenly awake enough to push her face into a cushion and shake her head furiously. She was thinking just as furiously, collating a list of things which could possibly come up which she wouldn't be able to answer, counting up the number of lies necessary that would have to appear smooth, natural, like she played drinking games every day, calculating her own threshold so she didn't drink too much and her tongue didn't loosen.

None of this showed on Blair's face, however, as she sat upright and tucked a strand of Serena-tousled hair back behind her ear. "Why not?"

Tripp sat casually beside them on the arm of the chair and subtly widened his eyes at his wife. She almost widened her own eyes back at him – as if she had to be told when and how to play her part.

"Chuck." Her tone was light, friendly, and hopefully sounded genuine. "Won't you join us?"

"It would be my pleasure," he replied, although he didn't stop playing for another full minute.

They sat in a circle on the rug, which was Serena's idea, and at least it was warm in front of the fire. Each had a small measure of the fiercely green liquid in their strangely shaped glass, and the maroon merino of Serena's cardigan fell in soft folds over her thighs as she announced portentously, "The rules of the game are as follows: if you haven't done what I say I haven't, you don't have to drink. If you have, then not only do you have to drink, but you also have to give details. _Explicit_ details." She giggled, and Blair breathed evenly through her nose. She'd have to drink for everything that would be normal for a married couple to do, and Serena was notorious for claiming never to have done something scandalous, drinking anyway and demanding stories from everyone who'd done the same thing.

With Chuck Bass there, Blair hoped she knew better.

"I'll start," Tripp offered. He still had his heavy outdoor coat on. "Never have I ever owned a bra."

The ice broke, the girls drank. To their surprise, so did Chuck, who shrugged.

"If I break something, I buy it, not to mention spares are always useful." He cleared his throat. "Never have I ever aced a class."

"Boring! No one wants to hear about Queen B, who never got a B."

"Never have I ever been to Coachella."

A story about the desert, string bikini tops, an unlocked door was related.

"Never have I ever held a stupid benefit for endangered sharks."

That had been a different kind of Shark Week.

"Never have I ever 'ground' on anybody."

The stories were disgusting and amusing and banter flowed as freely as the alcohol.

"Never have I ever given oral sex to a male." Chuck stated this with the air of one laying down a trump card, and then he was not only looking at Blair but staring once again, right through her, as if he could see inside her head and pick the secrets out of her brain.

He wished.

Taking a dainty sip of absinthe, which she tossed to the back of her throat and swallowed quickly so the taste wouldn't last, Blair lowered her lashes. "No doubt you all know how that goes."

"I'd like to know how you go."

Of course he did.

"Well, it's like…politics." Blair leaned against her husband's shoulder, grateful for the arm that went around her shoulders as a prompt to go on. "First of all, you need a firm grip on the problem…then an elegant tongue, to make things easier and give relief as required…and sometimes, when it's a really hard nut to crack, the best course of action is to bare your teeth and hope for the best." She'd been blushing hotter with every word she spoke, careful not to break eye contact, careful that every press of her lips together was just right. There was a slight sense of danger in his expression now, shoulders tensed, jaw tight, more like a predator than ever. She could smell her own perfume, so he must be able to.

And it annoyed him.

"The readers of the Spectator would love to hear how the youngest Mrs Vanderbilt gives head," Chuck drawled, and the rapport broke. "We could put it next to your 'Blair's Best Bagels' recipe."

"Your sexploits are more than enough for them, of that I'm sure." She slipped out from underneath Tripp's arm, retrieved her book, stood. "And I've had enough absinthe for tonight." Bending down, Blair kissed her husband full on the mouth, pretending an affection she didn't feel. She felt cold, and at the same time hot with shame. "Goodnight, sweetheart. I'll see you upstairs. Goodnight, S."

It seemed for a second as if he might follow her, but he didn't. They three went on with the game, and Blair went up to bed and rolled around and stretched her legs until they popped and scrunched up her toes, revelling in the fact she had the whole king size mattress to herself and that she didn't care what Chuck Bass thought about her, even if what he was thinking about was her on her knees before the seat of Vanderbilt power.

But she could only try not to care so long before she was simply lying awake, listening to the air con click on and off as the temperature outside fluctuated and the temperature inside stayed exactly the same, controlled down to the degree by the best system money could buy.

At eleven, when Blair knew she wasn't going to get to sleep, she padded down the hall in her bare feet and turned on the shower in a bathroom with apricot coloured tiles. The spray throbbed over her back and shoulders, beating warmth into them, a world away from the spluttering pipes in her personal bathroom. A flake of nail polish from her thumb disappeared down the drain, and Blair cursed. Now she would need to find a manicurist who wasn't a complete imbecile, which was a problem even in New York. Muttering under her breath, she towelled off and redressed in her pyjamas, then crossed the corridor back to her bedroom. All the lights were out, so she assumed everyone was asleep or at the very least in bed, and certain people were probably having sex dreams, not that that was any of her business, but she bet they were sordid and that no sane women would ever enjoy bringing them to life.

"Blair?" Tripp was sitting on her bed, still in his sweater.

"Hi." She settled tentatively beside him, crossing her legs beneath her. "Was there something you wanted?"

"You did well tonight," he answered, which astonished her. "I haven't known where your head's been at the past few days, but your repartee with Chuck, giving back to him as good as you got, and then the game tonight…"

"Don't remind me about the game tonight."

"But it was good. Maybe you shouldn't have left when you did, but it was great to see you making that smug bastard squirm."

"I don't like," Blair said distinctly. "To be treated like a sexual object, but if he's going to behave like that's all I have to offer –"

"Chuck knows very well that's not all you have to offer. He finds your resistance intriguing, even for a married woman. We can't be passionate, you and I, and we don't fake it, so to Chuck we appear functional, comfortable, and possibly in love. He imagines I don't satisfy you, and that you should be flattered by his attention. I'm glad you're not, by the way. You're the more practical of the two of us." Tripp's smile was, of course, easy and accessible, be it to Blair his wife or the traders on Wall Street or the lesser people who ran around between the skyscrapers and made things happen. "Serena makes me reckless, like she used to do you, when the two of you were photographed dancing on tables or making out with the same guy for a dare. She makes me free."

"But not practical."

"No, not practical." He got up, brushed imaginary lint off his sleeve. "Keep up the good work with Chuck."

"Believe me, it's not at all difficult to snap at him."

"Sleep well, Blair."

"Goodnight, Tripp."

The door closed behind him with a muted click, and the Congressman-to-be exited his wife's room and entered his own.

Chuck waited in the shadow of the stairway for the sounds, sounds he doubted Blair Waldorf had ever made with anyone, considering the tautness of her neck and never slouching straightness of her spine. He saw the light go out underneath her door, and hoped this latest twist in the tale was old news to her, and not a story he was going to break and break up her marriage at the same time.

An unattached Blair appealed to him, though.

He wanted to know if she was telling the truth about using her teeth.

* * *

**_As a Christmas present to all my readers, I've become an advent calendar. Drop a prompt in my Tumblr ask box, and I'll write you a Chair drabble of less than three hundred words. It's my way of saying thank you. Thanks to: _aliceeeebeth, bells-mannequin, Guest, dreamgurl, iheartchair, Dr. Holland, Jane, 29cmk, Flattered Octopus, avid reader, eckomoon, sunshineboogie, alissa-jackie, Arazadia, Nikki999, Eternally Romantic, Dimples84, ggxxlover, madetobemrsbass, SnowedUnderNJ, Alice-in-french, Tess, missbabyv, Manoella Nascimento _and_ Chairfan1990.  
**


	4. Page Six Worthy

**4. Page Six Worthy**

He didn't know who moved first, him turning away with a mixture of disgust and intrigue as a sour taste the back of his throat or Blair running – actually running – down the hall, tripping over her own feet, grabbing at his sleeve, eyes wide and frantic as a deer's in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Chuck had to hold her, his fingers slipping on the fabric of her robe, to grip her by the elbows and keep her upright as she swayed and pieces of whispered phrases spilled from her lips so quickly and quietly he had to bend his head to hear them at all.

"Please don't tell anyone, _please_ don't tell…" She could only have seen him for a second as she came out of her room, perhaps for a glass of milk or some other mundane need, now forgotten. "You'll hurt everyone, hurt everything, ruin everything, please don't tell!"

She struggled against him, and again he was reminded of an animal, fragile and frightened. He pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms firmly around her torso, not so much embracing as restraining, her shudders rocking them both. It was what they did to animals before they were slaughtered, Chuck recalled unhelpfully, herded them into a crush to slow their heart rates and force them to breathe more easily. Blair refused to do anything but gasp the air like it was being sucked away, but even Chuck loosening his grip didn't help. She was terrified of him, he realised, or at least of the secret he had unwittingly uncovered.

"Blair, look at me."

It was free of scorn, for once, of cool haughtiness, of the flash of playfulness he couldn't ever be sure he'd seen. The irises were colourless in the dim corridor, but the pupils were round and dilated and deep with desperation. Her right hand was flat against his breast pocket.

"Feel that?" The pocket rose and fell as he inhaled and exhaled, slowly, deliberately. She nodded. "Keep time with me. It's a waltz at one of those parties I've never been invited to. You can do it without even trying, can't you?"

As long as he challenged her, she could do it: and so she did, taking each breath a little more gently than the last, taking the lead from the rise of his ribs and the beat of his heart, until she breathed out in one long gust and Chuck thought it was safe to take a step away. He still held on, but more gingerly, particularly now her expression was smoothing out and she was politely but firmly disentangling herself from him, shaking her hair back over her shoulders, straightening her clothing, switching up her manners from alarm to assessment.

Black pyjamas, white piping.

No bra, as she'd taken it off to sleep. No matter.

Spots on her skin where he'd touched her that felt strange, as if they belonged to another person. She supposed they did: to a girl in a panic with visions of scandal in the morning headlines, not a woman in control, not a woman with chips to play. She didn't even need to disturb Tripp or Serena – Blair, as efficient as she ever was, had condensed all her fear into one pill and swallowed it whole, and was now sufficiently sedate to negotiate.

"Can we talk?" She asked, and there wasn't even a tremor in her voice.

"Are you planning to thank me?"

"Are you planning to write about what you saw?"

There was the spark of something, now swiftly extinguished.

"After you, Mrs Vanderbilt."

She led him into the study no one used, where Nate had once confided a secret stash of pot was hidden. Blair never smoked and so couldn't be bothered to search for it, and Chuck's nose didn't twitch as she imagined someone familiar with its stench would. Instead, he went straight to the leather swivel chair behind the desk, assuming the upper hand in the conversation just like that. Blair, determined not to give him the satisfaction, sat promptly down in the chair opposite as if it were the one she'd always intended to take.

"What you heard –"

He interrupted her more or less immediately. "Doesn't it bother you? Your husband and your best friend making the beast with two backs a few doors down?"

"That's not what's going on."

"I know what jerking off sounds like," Chuck said crudely, and Blair coloured. "And that wasn't it. I know what reverse cowgirl sounds like..."

"Stop it."

"So it does bother you."

"I don't think about such things."

"Oh, that's good." The leather squealed as he leaned back, crossing his legs at the ankle, laughing at her with his look. "You've never had sex with him, have you? Because if you had, you would've thought about such things – in fact, you would've more than thought about them. They would keep you awake at night wondering if she did this or that better than you, if he touched her the same way he touched you…but you don't think about such things."

"I asked you to stop it."

"You commanded me to stop it. Big difference."

Blair slapped her palms down on the desk, irreverent of those who might be disturbed by the sound. She must've dreamed him talking her down from a panic attack, because such a smug, supercilious Basshole would never do anything that wasn't advantageous to himself. "It doesn't make you big or clever to try and provoke me, and if you keep pushing me, I will push back."

"With the sword of scandal hanging over your head?"

"I'll push you straight out that window," she promised, with a tone as cold as the glass.

"Without Tripp to pull your strings?"

"Enough!"

Seeing her temper seemed to temper him; Chuck sat upright and stopped smirking. "I apologise."

"You should."

"But as sorry as I am, there's a story sitting in my lap that would blow people's minds. Adultery, politics, friendship, even fashion, all in one blast. Nate Archibald would win the race for Congressman, if only because he wasn't keeping his wife and his mistress under the same roof. You would either become a martyr for suffering through it or a morality tale of what not to do if you want to keep your husband faithful. Serena could write the column, the book, the movie of the true story they've seen on the TV and heard about on the radio. I would sell ad space a hundred times over. I would sell newspapers a thousand times over."

"And that's what it's about for you, isn't it? Money, and not the lives you'll ruin."

"You invited me here for my money, remember, not because you're fond of my company."

She had to admit to herself he was right, even as she shook her head and hated him. "That doesn't matter now. What matters is the deal you're clearly about to propose."

"I can type an email to the Spectator in less than a minute. Stop the presses, have your story ready for the morning edition." He appeared to be weighing up the options, considering her all the while. "But my paper has integrity and a name to uphold, and all I have is one incident. I'd much rather know the hows and the whys and stay silent than publish something William Vanderbilt will be able to sweep aside with one flick of his wrist."

Blair's eyebrows rose. "You want me to explain affairs to you?"

"I've had enough experience in that department, thank you. I want you to explain _this_ affair to me, how it works, how it began. Call it an insurance policy. I'll have all the information in case you or the family ever try to take me down, and believe me, I won't hesitate to print it."

"How can I be sure you won't just print what I tell you?"

"You can't. But you have my word on it, and trusting me is your only option."

Chuck offered his hand to her as he had once before, when Blair had been dripping wet and startled and somehow still less vulnerable than she was now. She bit her lip but she took it, trying to ignore the difference in temperature between them: her chilled fingers warmed automatically in his grasp and she could actually feel her pulse slowing, already conditioned by one instance of kindness, one inconsequential attempt to comfort her. She examined their clasped hands as a way of delaying the inevitable, hearing her blood roaring in her ears.

This deal with the Devil would be the death of her.

"Everything," he stressed.

So she shivered, and kept talking until the sky was pale grey with dawn and her toes were blue-tipped.

"There are other scandals," she told him hoarsely, legs tucked up beneath her for warmth. "More depraved that this, more detailed than this."

"That you'd like to share?"

"Call it a sweetener."

His mouth quirked, which was strange, because she was mocking him, and there was definitely nothing about her appearance that morning to smile about. There was gravel in her eyes and sand in her throat, and no press conference or party had even taken as much out of her as this unholy unburdening. Chuck extracted a hip flask from his pocket and waved it.

"It's not water, but…"

It was neat, but she expected no less. Blair took several swallows of scotch and choked on each, but they warmed her insides. She turned the flask over to read the engraved message.

"'C & N – two bachelors, two blondes, Bahrain 2010'," she read aloud. "You have been busy. Only two?"

"There were three brunettes and a girl from Calcutta, but not on that particular night."

"Charming."

"And neither as charming as you."

The whisky churned in her empty stomach. He stood.

"I should be going. Goodnight, Waldorf."

B was her nickname, or Queen B, but never her maiden name. It was the subtlest kind of blackmail, that he might soon reduce her to it, strip her of her pride and her position and her Vanderbilt.

"Same to you, Bass." In that case, he deserved no 'Mr', and no first name either.

Blair went back to bed but didn't sleep. She spent an hour picking at the embroidery on the comforter, staring blankly at a print of macarons on the wall which was Tripp's misguided attempt to make her feel at home. Then she got up, took another shower, dressed in perfect political bride casualwear – a Ralph Lauren sweater and the only pair of jeans she owned – put pearl studs in her ears and sat down with a notepad and a pen to write down everything she knew about everyone she knew.

_**~#~**_

"What would you like to do today?" Tripp beamed at them all like a benevolent godparent, and what could Blair do but smile back? She had a piece of paper hidden in her sleeve, crackling every time she reached for the juice or the coffee pot. Serena had leant over and whispered that she looked tired in Blair's ear as soon as she'd sat down, asked if there was anything she could do and then bitten her lip and still seemed worried when Blair had shaken her head. The sleepless nights, the short fuse, even Blair's cleanse of the day before appeared to be giving Serena the impression that it was either her or her relationship that was distressing her friend, when practically the reverse was true.

It was the fear that relationship would be discovered, in fact, that it would end and that Blair would take a shotgun from the cabinet in the back room and blow a hole in Chuck Bass that was simultaneously unsettling and soothing her.

"Can we go down and do some shopping? There are a few things I need."

'Down' meant to the artificial village down in the valley, built by the resort developers and staffed by their agency and made up of quaint little shops and cafes which visitors were supposed to believe had just sprung up when an enterprising individual saw the beauty of the vista and, as well as deciding to stay, realised the necessity of a salon and an artisan baker.

"Chuck?"

Chuck had been studying his omelette or typing on his BlackBerry and ignoring the others since he'd entered the room, but now he paused to nod his assent and Tripp grinned all the wider.

"Serena?"

"There's a baking class I'd really love to try, actually…"

"You haven't eaten bread since middle school."

But Serena wasn't paying attention. "…so you can drop me off at Comme-ci, Comme-ca while you shop."

"That's settled, then."

"Is it?" Blair laid down the style section reverently, since she'd once been featured in it. In an effort to draw attention away from her the bags under her eyes, her lips were coloured bright red to match her sweater, and the effect was rather striking. "Because what we've agreed is that Serena will go and knead with a roomful of middle class couples on long weekends and you two will come with me to buy cotton buds and hunt down a manicurist. Is that really what you want to do with your day?"

"I wouldn't mind a manicure."

Around the table, everyone pretended to be far more interested in their food than they actually were.

Chuck was wearing a tweed jacket, which fitted him well in the shoulders and went well with his expression of exasperation. "I had to train my staff not to go politely silent whenever I say something like that. Taking care of yourself and taking pride in your appearance is not solely the domain of females. Truman Capote and Andy Warhol both understood the value of a good manicure. I doubt Cary Grant ever had a hangnail, and if you'd prefer a current pop culture reference then I doubt Don Draper would have one either."

Here was a man who recognised the value of good personal grooming, and here was a man who had her up against a wall – metaphorically speaking, of course. Blair was still deciding whether he'd gone up or down in her estimation when Tripp spoke again.

"Then maybe Serena and I will bake together."

_I bet you will_.

Chuck deigned to glance in her direction just then, as if he'd heard the thought; strange.

Strange, and unnerving.

"Then I guess Mr Bass and I will go find a manicurist," Blair said to her husband, smoothing over the moment he hadn't noticed because that was how she held up her end of their marriage. He'd stopped paying heed to what he didn't need to because Blair never failed to deal with it before it could cause a problem.

She was good that way.

It was because she would rather deal with a problem herself than burden Tripp with it that Blair found herself reclining in a leatherette-covered easy chair. By New York standards, she was getting her nails bathed and buffed in the bowels of Hell, but objectively the beauty parlour was clean, well-lit and tastefully decorated in shades of dove grey and pale blue. The therapists either didn't speak any English or knew better than to speak at all, so Blair had silence in which to imagine herself a world away in J Sisters, where her desires were well known and well catered for by women nearly as well dressed as she.

"You really know how to hurt people. I admire you for it."

While his left hand was being attended to a little too enthusiastically by a young woman with Nordic colouring and poor judgement, in Blair's opinion, his right was occupied holding the list she'd compiled that morning and had had hidden up her sleeve during breakfast.

"I'm sure something on there's useable."

"The Vreelands have been foreclosed on _twice_?"

"They have the largest mortgage payments anyone's ever heard of – it's an open secret, but only to their nearest and dearest."

"Like you."

"Mallory Vreeland is pathetic," Blair replied archly as lemon-scented cream was rubbed into her cuticles. "She serviced Jason van Allen to get in with his friends, then Cameron Bloomberg to get in with his friends. She considers herself my friend because I permit her to, and because she has intimate relationships with the doormen of most of the clubs in the city."

"Georgia Buckley was stood up at the altar…"

"And the whole business was hushed up, guests paid off, bakery and florist blackmailed, journalists bribed to write retractions of their 'save the date' columns."

"Michael van Rensselaer came out of the closet last Christmas…"

"And was promptly shoved back in again by his loving family. You'd be doing him a favour by publishing that, he wants to be a cabaret dancer."

Chuck slanted a smile in the direction of the blonde at his side, who'd just inquired whether he'd enjoy one of their new hot sugar hand scrubs, on the house since they got so few male clients and he was such a treat to serve.

"A hot sugar hand scrub," Blair mused when she'd scuttled off. "I wonder if that means she's going to pour caramel all over you and lick it off."

"Jealous?"

"Of you or her?"

"I would say her." His gaze was direct, black gold and unexpected, the opposite of the way he'd looked at his therapist. She wanted to turn away almost immediately. "But then you've never had anything licked off you, have you?"

"Bass." Breathing evenly through her nose, she focused on the sensations in her hands, on her bones and muscles shifting and clicking and being soothed back to their submissive positions. "Whatever our relationship is, it's purely business. We don't do banter and we don't do innuendo. I could never like you."

"I could never like you either. And you're forgetting I could make you do banter or innuendo or dance naked around this room, all in the name of our purely business relationship."

Blair snatched her hand back from the forty-something with the severe bun working on it and abandoned relaxation. "You'd think I'd like you," she hissed. "You'd think I was like you, that I hold myself above others because I have money and status, but I am nothing like you. You're perverse and you don't even try to hide it and thank _God_, the moment you even start to behave like a normal human being and I stop fantasising about having you beheaded and served to Tripp on a silver platter, you do something to disgust me and make me rational again."

Chuck's mouth twisted. "Dream about appeasing Salome, then, but he'll never return the favour."

"I don't need him to!" She snatched up her purse. "Not everything in my world is sordid and based on sex!"

"Your marriage is sordid and based on sex! You married a man who's beneath you so your best friend could fuck him, and when someone tells you what an idiotic idea that was, you bury your head in the sand, put on a happy face and act like you've never wanted anything more than the grand plan of 'Tripp Vanderbilt, Congressman'!" He formed the quotation marks with his fingers. "He may as well be fucking you too, since he's fucking you over so effectively."

The glass panes in the door rattled, so hard did Blair slam it behind her, and one fell out and tinkled into nothingness on the front step. She didn't wait for an apology. She didn't believe he had the capacity to offer one.

_**~#~**_

"It's lovely, S."

It seemed best to be tactful, as Serena was still mourning Cece every time she remembered to and there was definite frailty beneath her glow. Her bread was lopsided and salty and scattered with pumpkin seeds, which made it look like it had a nasty green skin condition, but they were all treating it as if it were Serena's firstborn. Tripp hadn't even managed the dough stage, so he was the proud father of this loaf, tapping it with his knuckle and announcing that it sounded hollow – even though it didn't – which meant a good bake.

"Thanks, B."

Tripp, Serena and unfortunately Chuck had all travelled back together, coming upon Blair as she sat on the porch with a blanket around her shoulders and watched the sun turn the snow pink. She'd given all due care and attention to Serena's loaf and to furnishing them with hot mulled wine and individual crock pots of soup and stew the caterers had left underneath a dome of foil in the fridge. Now they were back outside, and Blair was peeling an apple while the others chatted about trying out the trick slopes the next day, riding the rails on snowboards or renting one of the massive inflatables to practice jumping.

"Bread?" Serena suggested brightly, and brought it out before anyone could object. Blair kept right on peeling her apple, thinking so hard about not thinking that she only let out a mild 'ow' when the blade caught her palm and drops of blood stained the snow between her boots.

"Get her a bandage, please."

How long could this vacation last? They all had responsibilities in the city, and Blair wasn't sure how long she could bear Chuck Bass' mood swings. He took the bandage himself, squeezing her wrist painfully to stop her pulling away from him while he worked and claiming it was to slow the blood flow. He'd yelled at her in public, and she'd yelled right back at him, and that couldn't happen again. Every interaction they had was doomed to disaster and the sooner she got back to Manhattan and her rightful place several steps above him, the sooner she could liaise with William about how to get his money for Tripp's campaign and gag him at the same time.

She refused to thank him, and hurled the treacherous apple away from her down the hill. Tripp and Serena exchanged looks.

"I'm going in." Blair's husband bent down and kissed her, his passionless mouth to her loveless lips, pausing a second longer to tuck in the ends of her fur stole and chuck her beneath the chin. "Stay warm."

Serena didn't stay much longer, but she did shuffle along the lip of the porch and lean on her friend's shoulder. "Grandma loved to ski." She sniffed, but Blair couldn't tell whether it was due to cold or grief. "I miss her. It creeps up on me when I least expect it, when I'm doing something else, when I'm brushing my hair in the morning."

"That's only natural. You loved her."

A tear slipped silently in the wool of Blair's coat, and guilt began to overwhelm her. She'd ridiculed Serena only that morning for attending a baking class, she'd been resenting her a little more each day since they'd arrived. Why was that? Blair didn't invite Tripp's interest, but maybe she envied her friend's freedom: when Serena wanted to bake bread, Tripp didn't just allow her, he went with her. Yale had been pushed to the back of Blair's mind in order for this vacation to run smoothly, she hadn't been handed a course catalogue and a ticket to New Haven.

But that wasn't Serena's fault.

All of this, she'd consented to, and all of this she would deal with herself the second they touched back down at JFK.

"I can go upstairs with you, sort you out before bed."

"I'll be okay." Miraculously, Serena's mascara hadn't even smeared. She gave a watery smile and then stood, shaking off her sadness as she shook off a sprinkling of snow. "Goodnight, Blair. Goodnight, Chuck."

"Goodnight."

The wind screamed and the sky shaded from rose to teal and lavender but neither of them moved. They were playing chicken and whoever needed warmth, comfort, solitude the most would be giving up something important. Chuck spoke first, which wasn't quite conceding defeat.

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're smarmy, there's a difference. Did Little J Sisters give you some sugar in the end? I hope you got your money's worth."

"I left shortly after you did, to corroborate the claims on your list."

"And?"

"They all check out."

"Surprise, surprise."

What did surprise her was his getting up from the out-of-place porch swing and coming to sit beside her. She stared resolutely forward, counting the craters in the moon as it changed places with the sun.

"Blair, look at me."

It was the second time he'd said that, and the second time she obeyed. Vestiges of the night before clung to them and his behaviour confused her, or else she wouldn't have done it.

Chuck brushed the hair back from Blair's cheek and kissed her. There was no moment of delay to wait for her desire to fill the gap, since she had none; there was only the kiss, which felt foreign at first and then familiar, his mouth against hers, and then unfamiliar because it was _his_ mouth against hers, his taste on her tongue like scotch and fire. It was by no means picture perfect, as his skin was chapped and so was hers and that hurt a little whenever the angles changed, as the air was frigid, as she was kissing _Chuck Bass_, whom she hated, who treated her like Tripp's property or his own plaything.

It was that which caused her to pull away. She'd kissed him back, she realised, even though he was cheap enough to smell of l'Occitane from the bottles she'd provided in the bathrooms, and his palm was cold on her cheek. Even that short second of contact in the icy air had bruised Blair's lips, so they bloomed purple and warm to the touch.

"I'm married," she said quietly.

"A detail."

"I hate you."

"I've never hated anyone more."

"You shouldn't have done that."

"No," Chuck agreed, but his eyes were like her lips: too hot in the twilight, when the rest of the world was too cold. "You're white and shaking and you look about twelve years old, which is why I shouldn't want to strip you to the skin and see whether you're as pale all the way down."

"You couldn't seduce me if you tried."

He bent her neck to the side, stroked her throat and softly bit her earlobe, and Blair appalled herself by making a high keening sound.

"I'm already succeeding."

So she pushed him hard, and he fell flat on his back on the planks.

"I don't come with the free room and board."

And then the screen door slid open and sighed shut behind her, and Blair ran all the way upstairs before he could right himself or catch her or say anything else that took away her Vanderbilt, that took away her vows and her marriage, that meant she was Blair Waldorf again with a scrapbook under her bed. She'd grown up as fast as possible and she wasn't going to start behaving like a light-headed, light-hearted child now, not for anyone, not for any_thing_. She brushed her teeth three times, swilled mouthwash, scrubbed herself for over an hour in her en suite shower as she didn't dare go out into the hallway.

Perhaps someone knocked on her door at three in the morning, or perhaps she dreamt it.

Either way, she didn't answer.

* * *

_**Merry Christmas! Thanks to all who participated in my drabble advent calendar (sixty five drabbles, over twelve thousand words of Chair, available on my Tumblr for the low price of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING), and thanks to: **_**aliceeeebeth, SaturnineSunshine, madetobemrsbass, missbabyv, Proudesian, sunshineboogie, Chairfan, laura, em, eckomoon, BlackPeonyxX, alissa-jackie, Nikki999, Guest, blackrose . forever, seher143, Paystin4Life, TruC7, ggxxlover19, Rf, Arazadia, flipped, Dr. Holland, Basscop69, Chairfan1990 Molly Dooker _and_ Rach. _I__t's been a long time since I've had such a strong response to a fic, both excitement and outrage, and it's wonderful to behold._**


	5. Ring Of Roses

**5. Ring Of Roses**

Greta Garbo said she wanted to be alone, and Blair empathised. She herself was lying in precisely the centre of the bed with the duvet pulled up to her chin and the door locked; unlike Greta in Camille, however, she wasn't planning a drawn out and overdramatic death scene anytime soon. Blair just needed time to think, away from her friend's inquiries and her husband's ignorance. She needed to withdraw into herself, file her questions and confusion neatly away and only peruse them in twenty years' time. To that end, she'd faked a bout of stomach flu and hidden in her room for two days, not eating or speaking to anyone, cocooned in the comforter in the hope of emerging cooler and calmer than she'd gone in.

The truth was that she knew she was being ridiculous. Serena had kissed a dozen guys who names she didn't know and numbers she didn't remember over the course of her high school and college career – she'd only lasted a few semesters at Columbia, thanks to a quickly hushed up affair with a guest lecturer – and probably done more besides. She didn't spend her life hiding under the covers, but she wasn't a political princess bride. Blair considered herself to be in a privileged position, even if Yale and a Wintour-esque career path as a dictator of taste were denied her, for now at least. She'd nearly thrown that all away when she'd let Chuck kiss her. That was the way it had happened, of course: she'd let him kiss her.

She hadn't kissed him.

And his opinion on the subject wasn't one she'd invite.

Blair tapped lightly on Serena's door. It was too close to the guest suite for comfort and confidentiality, but this was an emergency. As such, she'd dressed for an emergency in the most non-confrontational clothing she had and tried not to fuss too much about her hair. Not washing it for two days had done wonders for her dry scalp, but she had bigger things to think about than her scalp or Serena's gorgeously golden un-styled, un-stressed over bedhead falling flake-free and perfect past her shoulders.

"Blair! You're better!"

Remembering her 'flu', Blair immediately adjusted her posture so she was leaning on the door frame and smiled weakly. "Much better, thank you. Can I come in?"

The room was testament to an intimacy Blair couldn't help but envy. While the best Tripp could do for her was a print of some macarons, he and Serena played a very different ballgame. In here, the walls were dominated by dozens of canvases, so close together that no wall was visible between, and all of Serena. There'd been a photographic installation when she was eighteen, a relationship with some artist with scruffy facial hair and scruffier prospects. Her image had been projected on sheets and folds and lit and played on a loop, and then he'd made prints.

Tripp bought every last one when the gallery housing them went into foreclosure, and hung them here. He could hardly have kept them in their apartment in the city, after all. Blair understood.

Blair always understood, although the eyes of so many Serenas fixed on her – many pairs laughing, one pair concerned – made her skin prickle.

"What's up?"

"Just –" She swallowed. "Just wanted to announce my return to the world, I guess."

_Just wanted to tell you Chuck Bass kissed me_,_ and I have absolutely no idea what to do about it_.

"Tripp will be thrilled."

_Doubtful_.

"I hope so. Have you been feeding yourselves and keeping our guest entertained while I've been indisposed?"

"Oh, B." Serena seized her in an impulsive hug which ended with her arm wrapped around Blair's neck and Blair's head tucked somewhere in the region of her underarm. "You always talk like a European royal, even when you're sick."

"That's because I wish I were a European royal, S."

"You're okay, though?"

_Here's the thing_, _Serena_: _Tripp has to become Congressman so I can go to Yale_,_ and for Tripp to become Congressman we need Chuck_'_s money_,_ and to get Chuck_'_s money I need to be nice to Chuck_, _which I_'_m currently finding really difficult because I can_'_t work out if he_'_s blackmailing me or trying to seduce me_,_ which is why I_'_ve been hiding in my room these past two days_,_ and I really hate the amount of pictures of you in this room_,_ this isn_'_t the Pantheon and you_'_re not Athena_. _Aphrodite_, _maybe_, _but no one could accuse you of being wise_…

"I'm okay."

"Then let's go down and get you some food."

Blair made whole wheat toast to keep up the pretence of recovery, and she ate it in blissful silence while Serena chattered about what Chuck was doing that day, something about the resort offering crossbow lessons, and should journalists really be handling crossbows, and she hoped he wasn't hunting anything, and she was considering becoming vegetarian, and was Blair sure she was alright? Blair was fine, but regretting her unkind thoughts on the subject of goddesses. In her own head, she always ended up blaming her best friend for something she'd never actually asked her to do.

"Blair, you're better!"

Those two spent too much time together.

Tripp was relieved enough to hug her, a perfunctory gesture which involved clasping his hands behind her back while his arms stayed at least an inch away from her white mohair sweater. Since he was wearing green, this was sensible, and Blair would've told him so if she hadn't been so stunned. There was no one there to observe them. There was no need for affection.

"You've had trouble controlling him," she surmised.

"Controlling him? What do you mean?"

"It's obvious, Tripp. You let him go out on his own instead of buddying up to him and discussing the financials because while I haven't been around, the two of you have been letting the ambience of this place get to you." Blair put down a triangle of flavourless breakfast without regret. "Even if you haven't been romantic, you've been giving more time to each other than to him, and Mr Bass has been quietly drinking scotch and making notes on your movements. You finally realised this and became as motionless and emotionless as possible, and he got bored and went out to shoot things. Is that about right?"

Her husband raised his chin slightly. Serena bit her lip, and Blair sighed and pushed the hair back from her temples.

"We'll have to wait until dinner to do anything. Until then…"

"Tripp and I were going to go on a sleigh ride."

"Then I'll come with you."

They both looked their arguments instead of speaking them, which Tripp's wife took as tacit approval to to join his mistress in the padded interior of the tourist sleigh.

The driver was silent, and paid to be silent, but Blair felt her mouth becoming more and more pursed as the lovers ooohed and ahhhed and bumped noses and stole kisses as they swished through blinding banks of snow in the sunshine. She started to point something out every time they seemed about to do it, or to cough, or to direct the driver towards an obstacle which would make the drive bumpier physically as well as metaphorically. They were behaving like lovestruck teenagers, acting as if being away from New York meant _carte blanche_, no long lenses lurking behind the trees, no tongues which might wag for the right price.

And she couldn't chastise them because of the goddamned driver.

They eventually halted on a plateau in front of the treeline, a few feet away from resort attendants in padded jackets and a sound like a whip crack. Blair pulled the white fur throw up around her throat and melted into it, glad that the rest of her outfit was in such pale shades. Her cheeks were burning from the wind.

Serena, in her burgundy wool coat, and Tripp, in his flat cap and aviators, should've been the first thing an onlooker would focus on.

But no.

His hair had cowlicks from the dampness in the air, and a woollen hat was pulled down over his ears, sunglasses with orange-tinted lenses shading his eyes against the glare of the snow. He was watching her, and had been since they'd pulled up. Blair hardened her jaw and stared him down, blinking and breathing evenly, regarding him with the disinterest she'd show a nondescript piece of flora or fauna. Her fingers gripped the throw so hard they hurt.

Oaky, bitter, fiery on her tongue: scotch.

Citrus and aromatics and tea: l'Occitane.

A mewing, desperate, needing to be petted noise: her.

He'd bitten her on the ear, and she'd forgotten, and now it was rushing back and playing tricks with what she could taste and hear and smell.

So she watched him watching her coolly, and absently kicked Tripp in the shin when he appeared to be leaning towards Serena again.

"Blair!"

"Sorry." She apologised, even though she wasn't. "Drive on."

The driver got an extra hundred dollar bill, tucked between two fingers of Blair's grey leather glove when the other two went inside, already laughing about something, already holding hands despite the tall windows flanking the front door. He only nodded and went on his way, but she paused on the porch. She wanted to sit down and think, which was stupid. Avoiding thinking had been the aim of her pretend illness, putting the duvet between her and thinking and a door between her and him and them. She needed to be distracted.

And so Blair stepped onto the snow covered deck ten minutes later, in a red and white polka dot bikini, and interrupted what she could only assume was foreplay. A quick scan beneath the water of the hot tub assured her everything that should be on still was, and she climbed into the steaming water with surprising pleasure. Nights in the Hamptons were sent writing letters of acceptance and refusal or walking up and down Cooper's Beach alone, ignoring the bodies occasionally twisting in the sand. Luxuriating in hot tubs was a proper vacation activity, and also one which involved Serena, who she could talk to and who would keep her safe.

"I called Lily today," she announced.

Serena flinched. Her suit was a low cut black one-piece. "How is she?"

"She's getting by. Did you know your father is the executor of Cece's will?"

William van der Woodsen had burst back into his daughter's life only the year before after a fifteen year absence, still wondering if his grown up daughter liked banana splits and ignorant of the fact that his grown up son liked boys. Serena would've welcomed the Son of Sam back into her heart if his name was van der Woodsen, but Blair was more reserved. Serena's father was like her, reckless and attractive, and bad for Lily's attempts at a normative influence.

"He is?"

"He is. Lily told me Cece left you a lot of jewellery, with instructions for it to be cleaned and the stones to be reset any way you like. Your portion of the estate is also coming to you soon."

"And Eric?"

"His portion of the estate, obviously, and a chunk of her library in the Hamptons, plus some bonds and things. He's gone back to Sarah Lawrence. He's playing Puck next week and needs to be fitted for a green body stocking."

That news appeared to equally upset and amuse his sister. She smiled, but her lip wobbled.

Tripp noticed. "Blair, if you wouldn't mind accompanying me for a minute?"

He led her into the sauna, which was rich with the scent of cedar and warm from the residual heat of its last use. Blair put the question of who'd been in here last and what they'd done on the bench she was now perching on to the back of her mind.

"Yes?"

"You've been behaving like a child today, and it's going to stop."

"_What_?"

"You got up from your sickbed and went straight to Serena's room. You ate breakfast with Serena, even though you know she doesn't eat bread and was just sitting there to keep you company. Then you insisted on accompanying us on our sleigh ride, where you did everything in your power to make sure we were uncomfortable." He began pacing, the planes of his face as hard and flat as the plane of his stomach above his shorts. He was as smooth as a Ken Doll. "You followed us into the hot tub, and ruined the experience by making Serena upset."

"I'd recommend you don't let her watch the news, in that case. She'd be inconsolable over the situation in Syria."

He frowned at her, but not too deeply. Tripp was incapable of interacting with her in any way which implied passion. "All I can conclude is that you've suddenly decided to be jealous of her."

"Me? Jealous? Of _her_?"

"Of course you are. She's beautiful, she's free-spirited, I love her –"

Blair shot upright, folding her arms across her vulnerable chest, the soles of her feet tingling from slamming them so hard into the boards. "I'm beautiful, Tripp. Every editorial from here to D.C. says so. I may not be free-spirited, but nor do I want to be, and the very fact that I'm not means you're more than some spare Vanderbilt doing cook-offs and playing football in the background of every family photograph. You couldn't pay me to be jealous of your loving her. You couldn't pay me to be jealous of anyone in love, since you two are damning evidence that it makes you blind as well as stupid. I never asked for love from you and I _never_ want it."

His jaw sagged as she finished, straightened the string of her halter and left. Her dignity only lasted until she hit something solid and cold, and realised that no grand exit ever came without a price.

Chuck had removed his sunglasses, but the knit hat was still doing odd things to his hair. "You're wet," he said, holding her at arm's length.

"Let me go."

He did.

And as Blair took the second of maybe four showers she'd have that day, she fumed, and for the first time not at Chuck. She'd show Tripp how jealous she was, how head-over-heels in unrequited love for him, how she longed for pictures of her covering every surface and the heaviness of his plastic body covering hers.

She held something red and dangerous in her hands as she stood in the darkness of her bedroom, and was very pleased she'd brought it with her.

**_~#~_**

At the top of the staircase, Blair paused and took a breath. She couldn't remember the last time she'd worn something with a hem above the knee, and this slash of beaded scarlet prettiness stopped halfway down her thighs. It was meant to be worn over a glowing tan, and she was white, if not grey, but there was colour in her cheeks and heels on her feet and she had a point to make.

Stepping carefully, she descended one step at a time, not so much unused to the shoes as the way her dress swished every time she did. She'd deliberately made them wait an extra quarter of an hour, and there was a sound that was part-relief and part-amazement when Blair finally took her seat at the table. She was glad for Chuck's penchant for suits just then: they, on one side of the table, made Tripp and Serena look underdressed.

"I'm so sorry to have kept you all waiting."

Serena raised her eyebrows.

"As you can see, I felt like making an effort tonight."

"Bravo."

Blair turned her most glowing look on her guest, who didn't even seem surprised, and who lowered his eyelids to match her own sultry gaze. It was a rough estimation of sultry, but it was working, and Blair 'accidentally' slid her hand over his on its way to the wine bottle. It gave her a little thrill to feel the twitch beneath her palm, and to see Tripp seeing it happen. She winked at him, and extended her tongue to lick the bowl of her soup spoon.

By the individual beef wellingtons, the wife of one year was beginning to understand the game she was playing a little better. There was a steady stream of conversation between all of them, and laughter, when it was appropriate, but by the orientation of her shoulders and the way Chuck was following her lead, Blair knew she had his attention. She asked about his crossbow lessons, and he didn't hesitate to arrange her smaller finger around his index to demonstrate the grip and the squeezing of the trigger. He inquired about her recovery from the flu, and caught her wrist to jokingly check her pulse. The almost roughness, the insistence with which he held it sent a shot of something dark through Blair, something that went with the dress and the heels and the way she was behaving but which didn't go with her.

But trying to break eye contact with him was like trying to break away from a snake, from its hypnotism or from its coils.

The panna cotta was served, lusciously cream-coloured and flecked with dots of vanilla. Blair left it where it was in her bowl and felt hot all over.

It was nearly time for the next phase of her plan.

They didn't sit around the fire or play drinking games, although the way Tripp was now studying her made Blair feel as if she'd somehow been promoted from a pawn. She didn't stay and bask in it, though. Instead, she went up to her room, removed the majority of her makeup, changed into a black satin slip and stared at those stupid macarons on the wall.

_I can do this_, she told herself. _Other people do it every day_. _Serena and Tripp do it every day_.

She stood up, but the concept of actually exiting the room sent her back down to the mattress again.

_I can_'_t do this_.

But she had to, because to lie there and mope was as bad as genuinely being jealous.

Again, Chuck didn't seem surprised that the wife of his host would knock on his door a mere half hour after she saw him last. He didn't even seem surprised by her slip, though his expression changed, and she felt that dark shot again, like a crossbow bolt, like something wrong was wrapping itself around her. She focused on him instead: on his shirt and bowtie, on the jacket slung on the back of the chair which she _had_ to have interrupted him before he could put in the closet. Chuck Bass wasn't a jackets over chairs sort of person.

"Do you want to talk?"

"No talking," she said, and looped her arms around his neck.

Almost immediately her back was against the wall and the succession of brief, gentle kisses on and around her mouth wasn't enough, and yet everything was going too fast. She pushed up his hair from the base of his neck and gripped it in her fists, kissed the top lip and the bottom, and shook all over when he slipped his hands beneath her thighs and lifted her onto him. It felt good again and wrong again, hard and soft surfaces, friction and the inevitable slide of the straps of her slip down her arms.

They didn't speak until they were all the way down, until she was bare from the waist up and the dynamics and the textures and everything was too good and too fast, or about to be.

"Wait."

"Blair?"

She was looking down, following the line he was drawing around her breast, smaller and smaller with a single fingertip, concentric circles. She had no idea what would happen if he stopped, and she had no idea what would happen if he kept going.

"Blair," Chuck repeated, and Blair despaired. He had seen it or, more likely, felt it.

"Chuck?"

"I know what you're doing." He pulled her slip back up and lowered her down, slowly, until her feet were touching the floor again. "And you're not doing it with me."

"I…I'm sorry if I offended you."

"Go to bed, Blair."

Her hands were shaking as she turned the handle, and she had to lean against the wall beside the door and take several steadying breaths once it had closed behind her.

"You," Tripp remarked. "Just threw away a golden opportunity."

"What?" What was he doing out there?

What had he overheard?

"At first I thought the way you were behaving at dinner was scandalous, out-of-character and foolish in the extreme – but then I realised. I saw you go into his room, I heard…well, I heard what I heard, and then I heard your conversation. You threw away a golden opportunity by not denying whatever Chuck Bass thinks you were attempting to pull in there. Consider this: if you manage to seduce Chuck Bass which, rumour has it, is not difficult, he has to back me. Whether because he has you or we have this on him, he has to back me."

Blair recoiled. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him what Chuck had on _him_, but she demurred. "So you're giving me free rein where Chuck's concerned."

"Yes."

She slapped her husband hard across the face. "How _dare_ you." Blair was done with him misconstruing her words, her gestures; her voice was cold enough to chill even the hot handprint on his cheek. "I wouldn't fuck Chuck Bass if he were the last man alive, and you do not tell me what I can and cannot do, and I will not be seducing anyone, because I'm married to you. You should've learnt your lesson in the sauna, to stop putting two and two together and making five."

To her astonishment, Tripp bowed his head. His face coloured, and so strangely did his neck. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," she soothed, because he was her meal ticket, and because he needed a manager and a mother more than he needed a wife. "I'm sorry too. Go back downstairs, Tripp."

He was handsome, and she knew it, and he was a good match for Serena. It was plain to see, the neat parting in his golden brown hair, the bright interest in his blue eyes, in the way he carried himself when she hadn't bawled him out twice in one day. Blair sighed and went back to leaning against the wall and trying to compose herself. She didn't want her jangling nerves accompanying her to her room and infecting her sleep.

"Bravo."

But the night wasn't over yet.

Chuck was standing in his doorway, palms raised to ward her off or as if he were about to applaud.

"I suppose you heard all that?"

"I suppose I did." He stalked towards her like a panther and Blair stood her ground, closing her eyes only when he tilted her chin up to look into her face.

"Suppose I was sorry."

"Oh, lover." She shivered all over when said that. "You couldn't give me enough stories or bat your lashes enough to make me care about your being sorry. I'm just sorry I had to listen to you shrieking at your husband because of me. You really shouldn't get so hot and bothered over one little kiss."

One little kiss.

They'd kissed on the porch too, and she'd obsessed about it, and he'd forgotten it.

"That's the problem with the married ones," Chuck mused. "They always get so attached over things which mean _nothing_."

Blair tore herself away from him, enraged but too angry to speak it, to hit him, so furious at all the men in her life and perhaps all the women too that it was only after screaming silently into her pillow for two minutes that everything became clearer. Her stomach flu have been a ruse to let her rest up and harden up, like a caterpillar within a chrysalis. What use was it throwing tantrums like the teenage society queen she'd been, getting mad instead of getting even?

There was a phone on the nightstand with a pale pink receiver, and she dialled the operator.

"Concierge service, please."

A click, and an instant of piped music.

"Concierge, how may I help you?"

"I'd like to order…company, for tonight."

"For you, ma'am? Or for you and your husband?"

"For a friend. He doesn't know she's coming, but I know you'll make sure he's in for a treat."

Blair Waldorf did not do uncomfortable feelings, and Blair Vanderbilt did not do humiliation. She didn't retreat and lick her wounds, she inflicted new ones on her enemy; not that he'd wounded her, since no one could.

Sticks and stones would break her bones, but making it look as if Chuck Bass had to pay for sex would be just what the doctor ordered.

_**~#~**_

She led the girl up to his room, retreated, waited for the door to open and the low-voiced conversation and the exchange of money and his embarrassment at having to go to Tripp to send 'Eva' home in the middle of the night.

The door opened.

There was a low-voiced conversation.

And Chuck found Blair, her eyes lit up in sadistic satisfaction at his confusion.

And then he held her gaze as he took the girl's hand and led her into his room, closing the door firmly in his incredulous hostess' face.

* * *

**_Thanks to:_**** aliceeeebeth, issabell, eckomoon, BellaB2010, Lalai, sunshineboogie, missbabyv, Guest, Guest, SaturnineSunshine, blackrose . forever, Arazadia, em, Chairytale Ending, Eternally Romantic, threewordseightletters, BlackPeonyxX, SecretGG, alissa-jackie, Dimples84, Nikki999, Guest, Sparkleyangel, CBPP137, LaApatrida, madetobemrsbass, SnowedUnderNJ, CameronM201 _and_ Morsly.**


	6. Kiss, Marry, Kill

**6. Kiss, Marry, Kill**

Blonde hair everywhere, and legs, and arms, and skin on skin.

Straining shoulders and straining thighs.

The blissful face of the girl she didn't know, blue eyes, high cheekbones, a single beauty mark –

Serena's face.

Blood rushed to Blair's head as she woke up, sat up and scrambled out of bed as fast as she could. She wanted nothing more than to leave the nightmare between the sheets as she pressed her back against the coolness of the wall, the nightmare that had started with one couple but ended with four: Chuck and the hooker, Chuck and Serena, Tripp and Serena, Tripp and the hooker. A psychoanalyst could've told her what she already knew: that there was too much sex and too many secrets in the cabin, all of which were beginning to seep into her psyche.

The first image was the only one that mattered.

She needed to document it.

Blair padded along the hallway on silent feet, uncomfortably aware that she'd fallen asleep in the slip she'd worn for her attempted seduction the night before, and that there was nothing but a few inches of Calvin Klein between her and whatever might be going on in Chuck's room.

But she needed to document it.

So she didn't knock before going in.

The air was musky, warm and uncomfortably close; the window hadn't been opened that day. The sleigh bed was a storm of tumbled white, the duvet cover rumpled by waves of activity on its surface, the pillows out of place and flattened by the pressure of a head or a body. One was torn, and a trail of down led to its final resting place over by the door to the en suite.

And Chuck was lying on his back in a navy blue robe, his hands behind his head, his gaze slanting and heavy with sleep.

"She's gone," he said.

"Gone?" Blair had already pocketed her phone. "Gone where?"

"Gone back to whence she came," Chuck replied poetically, swinging his legs off the bed and taking a sip of scotch from the tumbler on the nightstand which had been in exactly that position the night before, if Blair remembered correctly. "Which is not to say that I didn't put her to good use. You have excellent taste, thank you for the gift."

"It wasn't meant to be a gift!"

"I know."

"You were meant to be humiliated!"

"I know."

She shook her head, the beating of her heart still loud in her ears in the aftermath of the nightmare. "You're disgusting. I sent you an escort, you –"

"You sent me an escort."

If his words disrupted her train of thought, his actions destroyed it. Chuck, with the nonchalance which accompanied most of his actions, knocked Blair's knees out from under her with a well-placed elbow. She fell helpless on to the bed but didn't stay down for long, going for him with her nails, thrashing against the confinement of his arms around her as she'd fought against him during her panic attack, as she'd failed to fight against him when he'd had her up against the wall and might've have had her anywhere the night before. He remained calm, and only demonstrated he hadn't been turned to stone by the raising of one eyebrow when she finally succumbed to logic and was hissing threats but no longer struggling.

"You sent me an escort," Chuck continued. "And I behaved like men do with escorts, and for some reason you were hoping I would rise above, and be embarrassed, and maybe give her a lecture about her life choices before sending her on her way. Why is that?" Blair squirmed when he touched her, one long, calculated brush from temple to jaw. "You went far too far last night with no intention of following through. I needed a go around. Just to clear the pipes."

"That is a nauseating turn of phrase."

"You look nauseated."

"I am nauseated."

"_Liar_."

He was right and she resented him for being right, and resented Tripp and Serena and even Eva for not bursting in at that moment, demanding money or attention or more money, demanding that no one stop Blair from being so very un-Blair-like, for moving softly against him as bit down on her lower lip but made no attempt to kiss her.

"I surmised from your conversation last night –" At least his voice was husky. At least she had some effect on him. "That anything you do with me is more likely to make your husband happy than jealous."

"But then anything I do with you is for his benefit."

"Don't tell him, then."

Chuck Bass didn't bother to play with her, since they'd done enough of that already. He did play her, though, the slow slide up the innerness of her thighs and then coaxing her to open herself to him with the skill of a virtuoso. In her mind, Blair's rationality had packed its bags and gone somewhere far away, and now she wasn't sure what was in charge. All she knew was that every micrometre he travelled was terrifying and electrifying, that she was reminded that he played the piano by the shape of his fingertips inside her, and that was weird, and that was not what she'd wanted when she'd come to his room this morning, and that she didn't know what everyone was getting so excited about, since this just made her tremble and feel hot and cold and unnatural and wasn't worth shouting and screaming and making movies about.

It was only the chord, she realised, the general sound behind the notes.

The melody was entirely different.

"You," he breathed.

"Yes?"

"You…"

"Yes…"

But the chuckle in her ear was anything but musical. "Would be far too easy to please."

No amount of scratching or biting or kicking could've held back the flood of humiliation which washed over Blair when he said that. She was herself again in an instant, standing on perfectly steady legs, setting herself to rights and smoothing back the hair. She looked down at him, at his ready smirk, at the darkness of his eyes, and couldn't help but curl her lip in distaste.

"Whatever attraction my body may have for you, my brain knows better, and yours should too."

"Tell me what I should know."

"You're a guest."

"I know."

"No. Not in my house, in my world." Her back was straight, her expression was blank. Everything was as it should be. She could've smiled if there'd been a camera. "This is my world, old names and alliances between families, and it's a world you'll never be a part of. people like you write about us, you don't get written about. Tripp may need you financially, but otherwise he would never seek you out socially. I wouldn't waste my time on you. Anyone who's screwed as many people as you have could touch me and make something happen. Someone will award you a plaque for that someday. Both of us entertain you for sordid reasons of our own, and we're not the only ones. You're the Upper East Side's dirty little secret, and you'll live and die in back bedrooms and elevators and ski lodges anywhere you can be kept out of sight and ignored until you become useful again."

Blair waited to see her hit register before she went to take a long, relaxing bath and rub lotion into her limbs, suppressing the urge to let her fingers roam and finish what he'd started, suppressing any urges of that nature whatsoever.

_**~#~**_

William Vanderbilt I was a man of perfect precision. His coffee began perking at five fifty AM, and after one cup – never more, never less – he played an energetic game of racquetball with one of his sons or, if they were busy, another sympathetic statesman. His granddaughter-in-law couldn't imagine him breaking a sweat charging around the court, or ever, for that matter. She imagined him being plastic underneath his clothes, a jointed doll with the mind and the teeth of a great white politician.

At that time of day, he should be sorting his in-tray, reading the letters and making the calls his secretary had already vetted or arranged.

"Hello?"

"William, it's Blair."

She never called him 'Grandfather'. Her own grandfather had a razor sharp tongue and immaculate style, and made sure the vases in her grandmother's office were always overflowing with flowers. She'd been told he smoked a Cuban cigar on the day she was born, but never again afterward, simply because his wife had asked him not to. He'd asked her to stop cheating at bridge, and she'd agreed. Then…Blair didn't want to think about what happened then.

There was a reason their staff had such high wages.

"Blair." His voice was like him, like old leather, like aged liquor. She didn't trust the comfort it offered one bit. "How are you? How's Tripp?"

"He doesn't know I'm calling."

William paused. It wasn't so much that he didn't speak as that there was a definable unit of silence, timed to indicate both surprise and disapproval.

"I see."

"The thing is…" Blair swallowed. She knew better than to play a player like the Vanderbilt patriarch, but she had no choice. "I have reason to believe Chuck Bass has a doctored photo of Tripp. In the original, he's holding a beer bottle. Someone has Photoshopped it to make it look like a bong, and whoever it has sold it to the Spectator. Probably one of the Buckleys."

"How can I help?"

"I need you to put all your resources into finding out Chuck Bass' secrets, even Bart Bass' secrets if necessary. I need dirt on him, and I need to keep Tripp out of this. You understand."

"I understand. Anything for the good of the family."

_The_ family.

Not _our_ family.

Because if it had been Blair caught in a compromising position, William would've let her fall. She would always be a Waldorf to him, the daughter of a lawyer and a fashion designer, a convenient spousal stepping stone for one of his golden grandsons.

But Blair wasn't a stop along the way. She was a destination.

"Thank you." She injected a syrupy concoction of gratitude and anxiety into her tone, all the while glaring daggers and the wall and speaking in a voice that sounded as if it might be smiling. "I'll do all I can to make Tripp come home, too. We're far safer in the city, where you can keep an eye on him."

"Then I hope to see you soon. Goodbye, Blair."

"Goodbye, William."

The pink receiver dropped back into its plastic cradle with a clatter – but only once she'd heard the dial tone on the line. Petulance was unbecoming in a lady, and it wasn't as if she'd expected him to be of much help. Blair would have to solve her own problems, fight her own demons, whatever shape or suit they came in. She'd known that on her wedding day, when her groom had smiled at her while the cameras rolled and then gone back to eyeing the polished toes of his dress shoes. She'd sat at the high table and laughed loudly so he would too, then commanded him in a whisper to dip and kiss her midway through their first dance. By the time they were all fifty, she sometimes thought, she'd be telling him how to handle Serena too.

What an unpleasant prospect.

But it was Serena handling Blair that morning, sensing the tension in the air from down the hall and materialising as Blair was applying hand cream, lifting her friend's hair off her neck, rolling a globule of product between her own palms and smearing it onto the ends.

"How are you today?"

"Tripp told me what he said to you."

"Did he?"

"And what you said to him."

"Did he?"

"He should know better."

"It's my fault if he doesn't."

"No, it's not." Serena worked methodically, separating the deep brown waves into strands and then rolling them between her hands as if she were buttering up pastries. "He's even more absorbed by me here than he is in the city. You get none of his time unless you're doing something for him. Pretty soon, he's going to slip up in front of the press if he doesn't start paying attention to you."

"He's already slipped up in front of the press." Once again, Blair wanted to confide what had happened with Chuck the night before, what had happened with him before that. Once again, she didn't. "But how are you today?" She repeated, rolling cream up and down her arms. "My mentioning Cece yesterday upset you more than I expected. I apologise."

"Again, it's not your fault. _I've_ been so absorbed by _him_, after all. There are lazy mornings and lazy afternoons and dinner with you and I keep finding new things to be excited about so I can push grieving for her out of my head. I'm not sure when it'll hit. Perhaps when we go home."

"I need to talk to Tripp about that."

"Oh? Why?"

"He knows."

To prove a point – to whom, it didn't matter – Blair threaded a pair of Tiffany diamond droplets through her ears and wore an impractical pencil skirt to confront her husband in his dressing room. Wordlessly, she entered and handed him a pale grey shirt, which he put his arms into and buttoned up nearly all the way to the neck without question. After she'd handed him a sweater with a half zip which he'd chosen to leave undone, Tripp asked, "What is it, Blair?"

She pulled his hem straight. "We have to go home."

He raised his eyebrows. "Are you sick?"

"No."

"Is Serena sick? Has Grandfather called?"

"No, but I called him. Tripp, I think Chuck's planning to discredit you in some way, and nothing I say or do will change that. Offering myself to him won't change that, not that I would." Blair was careful to avoid raising her eyes to meet his.

"Did I buy you those earrings?"

"No." Point proven. "We have to go home."

"Which would disrupt the trip, which would annoy Chuck, which would make him more likely to publish whatever you have reason to believe he has." Tripp placed his hands on her shoulders, and Blair looked up at him with exasperation and quiet fury.

"You don't understand," she hissed.

"I understand I can ensure this whole vacation has been for nothing, or I can do some pre-emptive damage control. We can make him like us, Blair." He shook her gently. "You can make anyone fall in love with you if you try, that's why you're on the covers of so many magazines! That's why I am where I am today." His voice dropped to a discreet hum. "Serena told me off for not appreciating you this morning, when I'm well aware of how much you've done for me."

_How much I almost did for you in the guest suite this morning_.

"And I promise you that I'm going to save this vacation, and I'm going to devote the rest of it to us. Our marriage is important, even if it's not the same as other people's marriages."

"That's not what I want."

"What you want is to be rid of a guy who's been pissing us all off since the day he got here. I see that. I get that. But the sooner he invests, the sooner he's gone." Tripp chucked Blair beneath the chin, which was something she was certain he'd never done before in their just over one year of marriage. It was disconcerting. "I've planned something for all of us tonight. A visit to the natural hot springs, a Japanese tea ceremony, you girls can go off and get massages and body wraps and whatever you like. Just come join us in the pool after. That's all I ask."

"And this will swing his investing for us _how_?"

"Trust me. I have a plan."

His naiveté bordered on stupidity.

"It'd better be a good one."

"Better than good. Do you trust me?"

What choice did she have?

"If it really is better than good."

"I want to hear you say it."

What other choice did she have?

"I trust you."

_**~#~**_

"You don't trust him, do you?"

"If he has a plan, he can go ahead with his plan." Terrycloth protected Blair's front from the wooden slats of the massage table, but other than that she was naked, glistening with a warming oil which smelt like cinnamon and Christmas from the nape of her neck to her heels. She rippled instead of stretched now, and didn't hold back on _oh_-ing and _ah_-ing when sore spots were kneaded and kinks were popped. Even her scalp had been massaged, but that oil was juniper-scented, reminding her of Hendrick's Scottish gin and a grassy knoll in the Hamptons the summer of junior year. "I wish him luck with his plan."

Serena's tresses were twisted into a topknot, and her beauty seemed more fragile without a golden backdrop to her face. "You're waiting for him to crash and burn."

"Precisely."

"And then what will you do?"

"Clean up his mess." Their manicures and pedicures matched, twenty fingernails and twenty toenails painted creamy lilac, and Blair stretched out her arm across the space between the tables to entwine her fingers with Serena's. Her wedding and engagement rings were absent. "Don't worry, S. I'm having a night off from worrying, and when it's time to go down to the pool I'll start worrying again. Which bathing suit did you choose?"

"Um…it's not that kind of pool."

A sigh, but not a contented one. "Of course it's not."

"But there are Japanese lanterns and these leaves made of soap and sake on lily pad trays…"

"Of course there are." Blair's drooping eyelids popped open as the masseuse's strong thumbs dug deep into her sciatic area and something gave. "That hurt," she announced mildly. "At least we'll be under the water. I expected something a little more civilised, but it is Tripp, after all. He's a man, and breasts float."

"How much do they float?"

"You'd survive the sinking of the Titanic. I might survive a capsized rowboat."

Their combined giggles shook the tables.

An hour later, Blair self-consciously smoothed her hand over her stomach as she went down the steps into the milky water, which was as warm as a bath and smelt fragrantly of mimosa and jasmine. She'd just spent forty minutes on the elliptical wrapped up like a mummy, and had supposedly lost several inches off somewhere. She couldn't see it. What she could see was Tripp, leaning back against the rocky edge of the pool, roaring with laughter at some joke Chuck had recently made.

And Chuck was here, in this private, dangerous place.

Her stomach fizzed with acid and her heart began to pound.

"Ladies!" Tripp gave her shelter on the submerged marble seat beside him, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and ducked his head into her neck as if to smell her skin. Blair leaned into him, but focused her attention on reaching for the promised measure of sake and sipping it. Mixed with the temperature of the water, it was a heady experience. She was immediately dizzy.

"Woah, B." Serena caught her by the shoulders. "Let me wash your hair. Slow things down a bit."

So Blair tipped her back her head and tried to lose herself, tried to forget about Chuck and Tripp, her body automatically responding to being petted by becoming looser, floppier, lolling against Serena. Serena smiled past her at Tripp and moved from Blair's hair to her back, dissolving a soap leaf into bubbles and running her hands down the line of her spine. Blair purred and Serena laughed, careful not to touch her too low or too high, careful not to do anything to break the spell of the pool, the hush of falling water, the simple sense Tripp made to someone as naturally sensual as Serena.

"All part of the plan," she whispered, and hugged her around the middle. "Have another drink."

It wasn't a drink, it was a ritual: rice wine dripped into Blair's mouth from a tiny porcelain cup which made her more and less aware at the same time. She was a spectacle, hidden like a geisha beneath the water but as flagrant as that Eva had been in her agency picture, albeit not on purpose.

Would it help?

Would any of this help?

Would it get her closer to home, closer to Yale?

She'd let the Devil himself pour sake down her throat if that were the case.

"_Enough_."

But it appeared the Devil himself was not impressed, and hands that hurt instead of soothed yanked her away from Serena. He scowled at her, at them both, the two lovers with their grand plan.

"Putting someone in hot water after air that frigid can make blood rush to the head," Chuck stated coldly. "And adding alcohol doesn't help, and I doubt she's eaten today either."

"I am present!" Blair snapped. "I can speak for myself!"

"I doubt that." He walked her, as if she were a naughty child, around the curve of the outcrop that housed the bar and underneath an artificial waterfall – which was freezing. Blair shrieked and spluttered, emerging from the other side with her teeth bared and her chest heaving with anger and shock. Her hair was plastered to her head, and so was his, and he strangely seemed to be as mad as she was.

"Who do you think you are?!"

"I'm Chuck Bass."

"And what does that mean?"

"It means I won't be won over by a little girl-on-girl action." He inspected his fingernails, acting insouciance. "But that was your husband's idea, I suppose. I much prefer yours. You could've sent me another hooker and a bottle of Krug and all would've been forgiven."

But Blair saw through him.

It was a particular talent of hers.

"You can't look at me," she accused. "Not in the face, not anywhere. And do you want to know why that is?"

"Why is that?"

"Because under the water, you're hard," she said crudely, and took great enjoyment from it. "And Serena and I turned you on, and I turn you on, no matter how easy to please you believe me to be. You'd like to fuck me here and now, but you can't, because that would prove me right. Your pride is more important than…" She let her hand dip beneath the surface and linger. "This."

His jaw was tight. Her lungs were tight.

And it happened, all in a rush and a splash, as it had that morning.

Chuck pushed Blair away from him and pulled her back, spinning her around to put her back against his front, not saying a word before he parted her thighs and parted her still more and began once again to play the concerto he'd abandoned earlier. Blair was determined to get a standing ovation for her trouble, and clamped down around him, and opened her eyes as wide as they would go and stared up at the stars. She could feel him but she refused to reach for him: that wasn't her aim. He'd had applause enough from a dozen or a thousand other women.

It was her turn, she who stood behind her husband and clapped for him, she who would probably never stand on a stage next to his grandfather and be lauded for the things she hadn't yet done.

This was hers, all hers.

Her debut.

He murmured something inaudible and she was gone, the vibration of his voice against her throat a trigger for the bomb to go off. It did, and the sky went white for a moment while the world shook, and all because of Blair, who fell back down to earth and curtsied as she did to the adoring public chances were she would never have. To be adored with a hand and a mouth would satisfy her, for now. To feel the shuddering in her limbs and the pulsing in her veins. She had made music with another person without knowing she could, and it had made her strong.

For a minute, at least.

"I am not," she told him. "Easy to please."

She slapped him viciously enough to leave a mark, but it only made him look as if he wanted to kiss her.

Serena bit her lip, which was already as red as her cheeks, and slipped back around the corner.

* * *

**_I considered including a content warning at the beginning of this chapter, but all that would've achieved was made you skip ahead and read those parts, or not allowed for the lovely slow build of tension that Blair (and hopefully you) experienced. Thanks to: _sunshineboogie, Iamstillinsane, EmiEllie, Megumi, SecretGG, eckomoon, Morsly, aliceeeebeth, TaraWayland, missbabyv, LaApatrida, Eternally Romantic, Nikki999, Trosev, merrimint, BlackPeonyxX, Guest, SaturnineSunshine, alissa-jackie, flipped, jsta, Sparkleyangel, Dimples84, 29cmk, CameronM201 _and_ threewordseightletters._ Have I mentioned I love and appreciate all of you? No? Well, I love and appreciate all of you._**


	7. Lotus Flower Feet

**7. Lotus Flower Feet**

Success had given her the strength to strike, and she'd struck Chuck, and a cut had opened on his cheekbone which oozed darkly in the dim light of the pool. He dabbed at it absently and let his hand trail in the water behind him, a tiny twist of crimson disappearing into pure blue. Blair sank lower in the water, up to her neck, submerging the flush which suffused her chest and enjoying the way her eyelids had lowered of their own accord and she could feel her heartbeat _everywhere_.

Serena seemed similarly drowsy, or else she was pretending, and suggested they all go back to the cabin and sleep. Tripp declared himself 'ready to drop', which Blair doubted. He believed everything had gone to plan, and was probably more 'ready to board' and indulge his caveman instincts than ready to drop with exhaustion.

They travelled in separate cars, Blair stretched out the length of the leather seat with her damp head in Serena's lap.

"S," she said groggily.

"Yes?"

"I do understand the point of Tripp's plan, and you played your part well…but next time you're going to go all Sapphic on me, will you at least warn me first?"

"Tripp thinks you might like girls, you know."

"Tripp's wrong. I don't have a lover firstly because the contract prohibits my having one, but mostly because I like sleeping alone. I don't want someone to use me to tire themselves out with. I don't want to wake up to someone holding on to me."

"You don't have to have them stay over," Serena pointed out.

"I would. There's be nothing less subtle than a man in an unbuttoned shirt sneaking out of my house in the middle of the night, smelling of my perfume. He'd have to stay and shower, and then it would only be courteous to invite him to spend the night."

"Sex isn't about being courteous."

"I'm not allowed to have sex, and therefore discussing it is dumb. Tell me about your plans for tomorrow. It's our last full day before we go back to the city."

Serena talked about another sleigh ride, another baking class, a few hours more skiing, and Blair listened with one ear and scanned for key words she'd be expected to comment upon. The rest of her brain ticked over in the background, leisurely turning over ideas alongside the emotions which came creeping out of her subconscious, infusing her mind like liquor surrounding the perfect plum for summer-scented gin.

'Like' was the wrong word. She didn't like Chuck the same way she liked Serena, but her response to each reminded her of the other. They were both intoxicating to be around, bearable at a low dosage but bringing on palpitations, reckless behaviour, delusions at higher concentrations. That was why she'd danced on tables at Butter, taken the waiter at STK out back and stolen his pants and left him waiting for favours she'd never give; Serena made her believe things were possible that couldn't be. Being in the same house as Chuck was too much sometimes, and being in the same room with him was worse. She got tangled up in the desires to impress him, embarrass him, to break him or have him break her. What would her mother say? What would her idols say, the powerful women whom she doubted had needed orgasms to bolster their sense of self-worth?

FDR had had his Lucy and his Missy, and Truman called Eleanor the First Lady of the World.

JFK had had his Marilyn and his Mary, Marlene and Mimi, and Khrushchev asked to shake Jackie's hand before her husband's.

Only by keeping their cool had they come out on top.

So, so would Blair.

So she murmured goodnights to everyone and didn't look at anyone, first up the stairs, first into her room, first with the satisfying _click_ of the lock between her and them: them being temptation, temptation being Chuck, and Chuck having never been an option and never being an option for her. She knew he wanted more, he hadn't bothered to hide it – but Blair's all had to be for Tripp, since he'd promised his was for her from now on.

_Our marriage is important, even if it's not the same as other people's marriages._

_That's not what I want._

And still she couldn't help straying downwards, just to see, couldn't help her little gasp of pleasure-pain when she brushed the soft, swollen flesh.

That's_ what I want._

_**~#~**_

_I apologise for anything I have said which may have demeaned or insulted you. I apologise if I have pushed you further than you're ready to go._

_I do not apologise for any effect my presence or my actions have had on your 'marriage'._

_From C Bass to B Waldorf, this morning at eight._

The paper had been twisted and pushed beneath her door, stopping up the crack and breaking the bar of light from the hallway. Blair was immediately blinded by the pure white coming in from the windows when she woke, and the murky yellow of the bulbs was more comfortable to focus on; that was why she saw it. His use of 'Waldorf' was deliberate, she was sure, calculated so she would know he wasn't apologising to Mrs Vanderbilt, whose authority he didn't recognise.

Blair Vanderbilt was her better self, and she hadn't been herself last night.

The fire below was frightening. The cool exterior was as familiar to her as the slippers peeking out from beneath the edge of her bed, moulded to the shapes of her soles. Blair slid her feet into them and tottered towards the bathroom with sleep clinging to her eyelids and pulling on her limbs. A cold washcloth solved the first problem, but a hot shower was out of the question until she'd spoken to Serena.

Their conversation ended before it had begun on the vanity in her room.

_B,_

_Gone for that sleigh ride I mentioned. After that, we're going to learn how to make sugar paste flowers and decorate a formal cake. I want to cover red velvet with red roses, like in American Beauty, and take it home for Mom. Yes? No?  
_

_We'll see you tonight. Take a personal day. Please!_

_Love you!_

– _S_

Communicating via notes was apparently in vogue that day.

Blair retreated to the bathroom in the hall, not in the mood to deal with the temperamental plumbing in her en suite. She spent too long immersing herself in hot water, too long trying to unknot her tense muscles, so long that the spray stopped being soothing and became an unceasing beat on her back, droplets bouncing off her skin so hard they felt as if they might bruise. She used aromatherapy shower gel and tried to relax herself by massaging shampoo into her scalp but ended up scraping her nails across it instead, rucking up white flakes beneath her lilac nails. She dropped and bent for the soap, hit her head on the temperature gauge and swore.

Snow swirled beyond the frosted windows.

The door had hit the latch and swung back, leaving it open, but the stall was around the corner, hidden from sight. Blair could just see outside the bathroom when she glanced over her shoulder and felt an urge to cover her naked body – but then, she hadn't minded being seen last night, and now there was no one around to see her.

A movement in the corridor, a flicker of grey: Chuck, wearing a heavy sweater for once instead of a suit. Blair leant forward a little and watched him cautiously, only one eye and half a head of wet hair reflected back if he were to turn that way and catch her in the mirror. His feet were bare, and it was strange to see him still walking tall without three thousand dollar shoes.

It was strange, and it was too intimate.

She towelled off and regretted her choice of shampoo: l'Occitane, the same as in the guest bedroom, so her hair hung heavy and glossy and smelt like his. Her negligee lay on the floor, but she didn't want it. She didn't want to dress up either, though, so she went to Tripp's dressing room and began pulling down hangers. So many of these items Blair had chosen herself, or directed him to choose. She didn't really want his sweater any more than her dress, but it was navy blue and went well enough with the pair of jeans she was wearing for only the second time since their purchase.

Blair didn't stay long enough to go through the drawers or return to her bedroom, unconsciously emulating Chuck by tiptoeing down to the kitchen with bare feet on unheated floorboards. The floor in there was even colder, the stainless steel fridge handle like a functional icicle.

The caterers had left cold cuts and, unhelpfully, an unsliced loaf of bread. They'd presumed even a politician's wife would know how to make sandwiches, but Blair's fingers were clumsy and she hacked rather than cut two thick slices from the whole. Crumbs showered the floor and the front of her borrowed sweater. The butter was over-chilled and tore up the bread, but the turkey had already been cut into conveniently sized pieces. Finally, Blair dusted off her hands and took a bite. The sandwich stuck in her throat, needing relish or mayonnaise, but it tasted okay, and her stomach stopped growling after a minute or so. She dropped the bread knife into the sink, paused to wring out her wet hair and lay it over one shoulder.

Now she was fed, she needed to be dry.

The sky had told her there would be snow, and it had started while she was in the bathroom. There was no respite from the weather even sitting in front of the fire, flurries moving in the air outside like pale snakes, smacking against the windows from time to time, making them rattle. Their light was blue and white, and the fire flickered orange and gold. Blair sat with her back to it, staring outside and trying not to think about the game they had played here, the front she had put up, the liquor, piano player's fingers. The scents of burnt orange and stewed green tea rose from her hair as it dried. She was warm and drowsy and almost mesmerised by the snow, so much so that every slap on the panes of the window made her jump.

"Blair."

She jumped again and nearly fell backwards into the fire place.

Chuck didn't come any closer, and they assessed one another: her still damp hair, her unmade up face, the red tinge to his ears, his mouth a little more vivid than usual. Blair's eyes were drawn to its outline as she imagined it speaking the words in the note he'd sent her. She traced it in her mind, finding sensitivity in the lower part and callousness in the upper.

"Did you want something?"

"Run your fingers through it."

"What?"

He looked down, up, at his feet, at hers, at her face. She felt her pulse in her palms, in her arms and legs, in her belly and neck and against her ribs. There was the suggestion of slight stubble on his chin, a pink patch of razor burn on one cheek.

"Run your fingers through your hair. It'll dry faster."

"I got your note."

"I assumed you did."

"You put my marriage in inverted commas."

It was an accusation, but Chuck didn't say anything. He stayed perfectly still, as it to move or to defend himself would startle her, as if she were a deer and he was waiting for her to come even closer before he took a shot.

Blair's imagination went strange places when he looked at her and didn't say anything.

"My feet are cold," she said, because he wouldn't, and left the room.

Even walking back up the stairs, she knew. It was like a tangible scent in the air, the possibility, joining the dots between the quiet footfalls behind her and her churning stomach. She knew he would follow her, that he would linger in the doorway to her bedroom, leaning against the frame. She shielded her lingerie drawer from his view with her body, selected a pair of black sports socks she'd never used for sport and perched on her bed.

"You have small feet," he remarked finally.

"Yes."

Blair's fingers were shaking as she tried to separate the pair.

"Here."

As if he did so everyday, Chuck knelt before her, the movement smooth and unexpected. He curved his hands around the outsides of hers, larger, rougher, retrieving the socks and rolling them up so she could put just her toes into the opening, continuing, "My father had a collection of black and white photographs showing Chinese women who'd undergone foot binding. Their feet were so deformed after a few years that they more resembled lotus flowers than anything human, but the pictures were still considered pornographic because the initial shots just showed small bare feet – feet like yours."

"Must everything be about sex with you?"

He cupped her heel in his palm, and her whole leg jerked.

"Yes."

To be kissed then, a brief lip-to-lip contact like he was giving her breath, felt absolutely natural to Blair. She didn't even blush. It was when he lifted up the corner of the duvet, and didn't make a joke, and didn't question her, that red began to stain her skin from the neck upwards, and made it hot between the snowdrifts of white sheet.

How different Chuck Bass was when he was taking off her clothes. He chafed each inch of skin he revealed to warm it, waited for her nod before unbuttoning, unzipping, unclasping. She was less methodical, tugging on sleeve and belt, tucking her chin into his neck and gazing past him at the room, and all the things that were bearing witness to the things she was doing.

The clock on the wall ticked ninety minutes of time before he stopped kissing her, and she stopped kissing him back. They'd lain naked together and done nothing but that, reacquainting themselves, writing unsweetened nothings on the roofs of each other's mouths. _Now._ _Yes_. _Okay_. They'd traded secret messages along with niceties, along with sharper arousal when she sucked on his lower lip hard enough to break a still healing scab, when he bit the tip of her tongue and got a quick breath of displeasure and nail marks in his upper arm in return. They moved but not against one another, leaning away from each other underneath the comforter, delaying the inevitable for the sake of having with tongue and teeth the sort of conversation would probably never have.

"I don't know how," she murmured. "Not on top, not underneath. I don't know how."

"Put your leg up here."

She hooked it up around his waist, the curve of his hip more angular than hers.

"Relax."

Chuck's tone was a tunnel and it had no end and there was no going back now. "You tell me to stop, we stop. I promise."

"Okay."

The kiss on her forehead was gentle and sexless, but the firm movement was anything but.

Blair counted it as the first word in an argument she was going to win.

_Good_, she wrote him.

_Sure_.

_More._

Pressing on a bruise was like this: wrong but you had to do it, had to feel the ache and release. It was frightening to come apart. It was worse to come back together. Then they had to be apart, and together again. Over and over, grabbing at parts of each other that previously hadn't mattered, elbows and hair. Smothering each other with their mouths with murderous intent. Stopping and not stopping like a record on repeat, banging their bodies together, friction-filled and awkward and ecstatic.

The pressure of her around him.

The pressure of him in her.

White light, white noise, white snow and white sheets.

It was a world of white when they were under the duvet and slowly suffocating.

Blair's lashes felt heavy on her cheeks. "You're good at that," she admitted grudgingly.

"You're appalling."

There had to be some kind of magnetism at work, because she'd meant to hit him.

She hadn't meant for _that_ to happen again.

"You're good at that," Chuck mocked her afterwards, his eyes closed, seeing by touching.

"You're appalling."

"You're a bitch."

"Only because oxytocin is flooding my brain right now, trying to make me stay with you."

"And?"

"I'm not going to stay with you."

He didn't even blink. "Good."

"Good."

"We should do something fun."

"Was that not fun?"

"I'm not laughing."

"No." She traced his lips for real now, not just in her mind, felt living breath and warmth.

"Fun," he insisted. "We should do something fun."

Why she consented to go out in the snow with him, she had no idea.

'I'm Chuck Bass' was his reply when Blair asked him where he'd found the sledge. Why he wanted to drag her around on it was for 'fun', apparently, or more accurately because he enjoyed it when she screamed. She enjoyed stuffing snowballs down the back of his jacket and the ensuing gasp and snarl.

The weather worsened and they lay out in it, becoming slowly mummified beneath a layer of powder until she tried kissing him. Blair wasn't certain when last she'd tried to kiss someone, but it worked. It made everything bubble up inside again, made her needy, especially when he lowered his face to her neck and began an unspeakable message that made her want to laugh and have him and push him away and roll on top of him in no particular order.

"We haven't had our post-coital heart-to-heart yet," she teased.

"We're not teenagers in the back of a pick-up truck."

"And I don't love you."

"And you don't love me."

"And you don't love me, I hope."

"And I don't love you, you hope." He smirked up at her, flat on his back with her propped up on one arm. "Be still, my beating heart, which breaks every time I look at you, princess. May God have mercy upon me and dampen the fire in my loins which you stoke with every breath you take."

"Stop talking about your loins."

"My loins are the best thing that's ever happened to you."

"I've come harder," she countered provocatively, but there was nothing he could do about it out in the cold with every inch of her wrapped up and hidden.

Chuck studied her, his black-gold gaze as soft as it could be. "I wasn't your first," he agreed. "But no, you haven't. You've come four times thanks to me and I love to watch you squirm."

"Do I thank you now?"

"No. No talking."

But it was Blair who held him down, bare-faced, skin whipped white by the wind, still trembling, putting her mouth on his and not talking until being submissive got boring and he took her inside to stop her shaking.

"B!"

Serena sprang from behind the breakfast island where she'd been reverently arranging fifty pounds of crimson-coloured cake, startling everyone, not least of all Blair, who folded her into her arms on autopilot, blinking in surprise.

"S…hi?"

"I have so much to tell you. _So_ much."

Her hair flew behind her as she dragged Blair up the stairs, bouncing down the corridor, opening the door to her room and prompting Blair to send up a prayer of thanks that her bedroom and tumbled bed hadn't been Serena's object. Her friend chattered about the sleigh ride and the difficulties of sugar paste, but only so long as it took the door to swing shut.

Her blue eyes were bright. "Blair."

"What?"

"I saw you."

The words sent ice through Blair's veins. Her expression, however, indicated polite curiosity. "You saw me what?"

"Not you, _you_. The two of you. Love's young dream."

"We're not in love."

"You know what I mean!" Serena began to pace, but Serena van der Woodsen's way of pacing was to charge, so she charged towards each wall and the enormous images of herself which covered them, skidded to a halt, spun around and charged back in the opposite direction. "You were all over each other, and it wasn't even like he was on you and you were fending him off! You were practically riding him out on the slopes!"

"And what have you been doing?" Blair inquired coolly. "These past few hours?"

Serena was silent.

"That's what I thought."

"I'm not married!"

"Tripp is. Tripp is married to me, in case you've forgotten, and if you were riding him in a one horse open sleigh or on the countertop at your class, I couldn't give a fuck; but fucking is the problem here, isn't it? You can but I can't?"

"Not with Chuck Bass!"

"No one will know!"

"You have a contract!"

"No one will know unless you tell them!"

"Blair." She was an eerie carbon copy of Blair a few hours before, perched on the edge of her bed, knees drawn up to her chest. "This isn't like you. Not to kiss somebody else, not to…not to have _sex_ with somebody else. This can only be the second time in your life you've had sex, right? This is probably the first time it's felt good. Please, take a minute. Think about what you're doing."

"What confuses me –" They were opposites in every way, light and dark, sweet-faced and sour-voiced. "Is why you're so bothered about my chastity all of a sudden. Last night, you were ready to put on a girl-on-girl extravaganza starring you and I if it helped Tripp." Blair folded herself into a sitting position beside Serena, smugly registering the suppleness of her muscles and their pleasant twinging. "You are in no position to judge me," she said quietly. "And I don't want you to. I spent an afternoon not worrying about you, or my husband, or the Vanderbilts. The last person to see me naked before this vacation was my masseuse, and that's only because the towel slipped. Months go by without parts of my body being touched, and I don't just mean _those_ parts. Most of the time, I'm fine with it. It's like I said before, I don't want to wake up to someone holding on to me. I doubt he does either."

"Do you have feelings for him?"

"No. _God_, no."

"I don't believe you."

"Don't believe me all you like." There hadn't been any point in primping when it was she and Chuck alone in the house, but now Blair couldn't resist patting her cheeks, as if the skin might be slick or flaking, the paint of her portrait cracking. "You told me to take a personal day. I did. And don't you dare run to Tripp so he can spin this into something which helps him. It's mine. _Mine_."

She got up, straightened Tripp's sweater's hem and stepped out into dim hallway, automatically reaching for the light switch.

"Don't."

This was beginning to feel awfully like a Hitchcock movie.

"Were you eavesdropping?"

"Yes."

"I'll sue you if you write an article about it."

Then they went their separate ways to their separate bedrooms to change before dinner, and Blair found that the housekeeping team had visited, erased the sins that stained her sheets and made everything clean again.

So she wore black lace beneath her blouse and nothing beneath her skirt, because she wasn't clean, and it was through her own choice.

_Mine_.

* * *

**_Thanks to: _TaraWayland, madetobemrsbass, SaturnineSunshine, Guest, sunshineboogie, Morsly, alissa-jackie, EmiEllie, eckomoon, Trosev, Rf, Nikki999, BellaB2010, aliceeeebeth, missbabyv, SecretGG, SnowedUnderNJ, flipped, Sparkleyangel, em, Shessysmistress, avid reader, evieoh, Villemo, Rachael _and_ Dimples84. _I'm usually too busy to reply to reviews, unless you have a question - but each and every one matters to me, and I keep the emails that announce them because you're so incredibly kind._**


	8. Galatians Six Seven

**8. Galatians Six Seven**

Their last supper – in the form of a last breakfast – certainly looked sinful. Pastries were golden and fell to pieces when poked, imported honey oozed upwards when you popped the top on its octagonal jar, there was an array of jams and jellies in jewel bright hues and some idiotic caterer had delivered fresh bread which they all resolved not to eat. Self-denial made no difference: the scent, capable of selling houses and turning heads, had them all hovering over it like vultures even as they told themselves they wouldn't take a single bite.

Chuck, of course, just sliced it, and took pleasure in its consumption.

Blair tried not to take pleasure from what he was attempting to do under the table. She'd kicked him, slapped him, dug her nails into his thigh, all beneath the shelter of the tablecloth, and it was having no effect. She supposed it didn't help that she'd set a precedent at dinner the night before, having three successive 'moments' while he picked at his duck confit and then having to rush out of the room to splash cold water on her face. Still, she was determined not to let the same be true of today, because she needed to focus. More importantly, she needed to detach.

The car would take them to the airport, where his plane would take him home and Tripp's plane would take her. Holiday romances – not that that's what theirs was – never lasted longer than the holiday.

She 'accidentally' dug him hard in the ribs with her elbow whilst rearranging some grapes on her plate, and he wheezed, and his eyes closed briefly as if he were enjoying it.

"The Spectator's numbers are up," Chuck announced in an infuriatingly even tone. "Apparently, all the 'leaks' I've been emailing the office about the wild parties I've been having while you all went to bed early have been most _stimulating_ for my readers."

He punctuated the word with a gesture, and Blair squeaked and clapped her hands over her mouth.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking everywhere but to her right. "I seem to have a tickle in my throat. Excuse me while I go get some aspirin."

"I'll help you find it," Tripp volunteered, to the amazement of all.

Where in the cabin she would find aspirin, or any other medical supplies for that matter, Blair had no idea. She idly smoothed back her hair as she headed for the hall bathroom and wondered if she had changed, or if everything else had. It was strange not to feel wound up, to notice of the rich colour of apricot jam and the slide of her thighs against each other. Her hair felt silky and the ends curled like she wanted them to. Tripp walked beside her, but a little way behind her, and once they had the door shut and locked behind them, he broke into a grin so wide it split his face in half.

"Who died?" His wife asked acerbically. "Presumably someone who invested well in real estate."

"It's not anyone else, it's you."

"Me?"

"You." He sat down on the edge of the tub, and patted the cold ceramic by way of an invitation. Her expression reflected her feelings on cold ceramic on a cold day, but she sat. "You've transformed into the perfect hostess all of a sudden, no more sarcasm, no more disagreements…you keep smiling. You keep smiling, so our guest keeps smiling, and a happy Chuck Bass means the likelihood of investment going through the roof." Tripp fumbled in a pocket, found the obligatory black velvet box; drew it out. "Serena helped me pick this out. I wanted to say thank you for all you've done for my career. For all you've put up with. I'm sorry we haven't had more time to get to know each other better, to ski together or whatever."

"That's alright." Blair accepted the box, feeling oddly numb. "You were busy."

She flipped the lid: a tennis bracelet, eighteen karat if she had to guess, set in rose gold. It was a lovely, delicate thing, of a style she never usually wore. Serena's influence was obvious.

"It's charming."

"Do you like it?"

"Thank you so much."

Not an answer.

The proper thing to do was to put her arms around his neck and kiss his cheek, even though that was improper in terms of their relationship. He accepted it, and perfunctorily kissed her back on the opposite side. They both moved stiffly, and were more awkward with one another than polite strangers would be. Tripp had come to heel after he'd insulted her, and Blair was just sorry that state of affairs couldn't continue much longer. In the city, beneath the watchful gaze of the Vanderbilts, she was everything she pretended to be: well-mannered, mild-mannered, well-bred, malleable. She'd be something more behind the scenes, prodding her husband's career in the right direction, but it wasn't the same as giving in to her desires to shout sense at him, to slap him and to hear _him_ apologise for provoking _her_ afterwards.

It wasn't the same as giving in to her desires.

"I should finish packing."

But she closed the clasp of the bracelet around her wrist before she left.

It was loose, and her cases were already packed. They were lined up beside the door to her en suite.

"Tiffany's." Chuck crooked his little finger into the links of Tripp's gift and drew her towards him. "I hope you thanked him appropriately."

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I do know. You smell like Acqua di Parma and idiocy."

"Probably because I'm around you." Blair turned her head to the side and bared her neck to allow better access to the nape, which had previously proved to be of particular interest to him.

"Can I see you in New York?"

She pulled away, and the bracelet strained. "What?"

"Would you meet me?"

"You won't like me when we're back."

"I doubt that."

"I won't like you when we're back."

"I doubt that." He gently pinched her bottom lip. "Your eyes are doing that thing where they don't match your mouth."

Her teeth closed on his fingertip, but not hard.

"Two weeks," was her counter-offer, gaze firm, voice soft, body pliant and subconsciously bending towards him. "If you still feel the same in two weeks, you can call me. If you haven't been distracted by models and socialites and pretty office girls with pretty heads filled with pretty much nothing."

"What will you do if I call you?"

"I'll come."

She didn't expand on that statement.

_**~#~**_

Tripp's gift to Blair was a peace offering from Serena too, and as such Blair only blinked at her as she slid into the seat at her side. Serena had pinned her hair on top of her head and was doing her best to look repentant. She proffered the champagne bottle, but tentatively, and an unhesitating Blair uncorked it with a flick of her wrist. She explained she'd been doing the same for test shots the week before Tripp had announced he was running for Congress, but her hands still appeared too dainty and her wrists too likely to snap.

Everybody winced.

"What a great few days." Serena sighed and subsided into the leather upholstery. "I always feel sixteen again when I'm away from the city."

"You're not far off sixteen," her best friend pointed out. Everything about Blair was red: scarlet wrap dress, crimson embroidered coat, cherry coloured heels and fire truck lipstick. She'd change before they landed, everything except the pearls around her neck: they matched the pearls in her ears, and were perfectly suitable for a politician's wife.

"I was different at sixteen."

_No_, _you weren_'_t_. It was an uncharitable thought, but one of the best things about Serena was that fact, that she hadn't changed. She'd been spontaneous at sixteen, as ready to replace a model in a runway show as she was to change her mind about a skirt over shorts, and she was spontaneous now. She took baking classes at a moment's notice_, _she went on trips doomed to awkwardness by the presence of her lover and his wife. Her spontaneity showed as blind optimism and gorgeous recklessness, and Blair loved her for it.

And hated her, sometimes.

But mostly loved her.

"Weren't we all," she said blandly, and sipped her champagne. It would make her giddy and giggly as soon as they were in the air, but giddy and giggly were what she needed to get through several hours in a confined space with Tripp and Serena in adjoining seats.

"I'd bought my first property by sixteen," Chuck commented, continuing the theme of the conversation.

"Your father bought it for you," Blair countered, and smiled archly at him. He didn't take offence. "What was it?"

"A burlesque club in Midtown."

"Do you still own it?"

"Yes."

"Does is still turn a profit?"

"Yes."

"Have you grown out of getting off on watching middle-aged women with Bettie Page bangs and feather boas?"

"Never," he replied, and she laughed and went back to her drink.

Tripp's eyebrows rose, and Serena hurried to fill the deficit in the discussion. "I think you'd love burlesque if you took classes, B," she remarked. "Hazel hired a dancer to teach us all for her bachelorette. There's something so classy about what you conceal compared to what you reveal."

"You still have to reveal," Blair rebutted. "You're still advertising yourself."

Chuck rested his eyes on her again; she felt it like a physical pressure. "You could say all clothing is 'still advertising', in that case. You're inviting the world to imagine what's underneath."

"They'd imagine more if I were wearing less."

"Perhaps. Luckily, your husband doesn't have to imagine."

She bared her teeth, and Tripp chuckled and leaned over to squeeze her knee. The gesture was neither affectionate nor inappropriate, and though they all nudge-nudge-winked-winked fit to beat the band, every person in the car knew Blair and Tripp had never so much as taken their clothes off in front of one another. Considering how closely guarded the secret was supposed to be, it was astonishing the whole Upper East Side didn't know by now.

Would it be a good or a bad thing if they did?

_Bad thing_, Blair told herself, and finished her champagne.

The airport was undersized, understaffed and private, so its first class lounge was its only lounge. There was a bar which opened in the evening and a shop offering 'rustic' souvenirs which Tripp and Serena went off in search of, lovebirds cooing over coonskin caps. Chuck and Blair had been seated next to each other by virtue of the order they'd exited the town car, and the alcohol fizzing in her veins made her brave enough to drop her head onto his shoulder.

"If you call me…"

"_When_ I call you."

"There would have to be rules."

"No. Your life is too full of rules as it is."

"Yours could use some."

"No one ever goes into anything like that to take control of things."

"No? Then why do they go into it?"

"To let loose. To let go. It's human nature to be free." His fingers ghosted down her arm, a subtlety that, when it was over, seemed never to have happened at all. "Otherwise you wind yourself up so tightly that even everything you've worked for crashing down around you would give you some small satisfaction."

"You speak like you understand."

"I understand you. Don't take that as insult or as a way of denying you your feminine complexity."

"My life is complex." She'd been chafing her lips with a Kleenex for a minute or so, removing the daring lipstick before it could stain and spoil her raspberry gloss composure for when they landed. Her mouth was raw.

"The more you have, the more you have to lose." He shifted away from her, but slowly, widening the distance between them until it was unremarkable. "And I will call you."

"We'll see."

"You'll see."

The tissue he lifted from her lap, folded neatly and tucked into his top pocket behind a square of spotted ruby silk.

They divided on the tarmac, with handshakes and cheek kisses all around. Neither party lingered, nor behaved in any way as if they might be sorry to see the other go. Blair was first up the steps, followed by Serena and then Tripp. They were silent as they strapped themselves into the jet's fawn coloured interior, but as soon as they were airborne Serena slipped her arm through Blair's and led her towards the bedroom at the back of the plane. It was oddly reminiscent of her diversion the night before, and Blair was wary as the latch clicked, promising privacy.

Serena held her by the shoulders. "Are you going to cry?"

"No."

"Scream?"

"No."

"Then let's sit down."

The bedsheets were striped beige and cream, and the room was dim with the shades drawn. "What?" Blair demanded as she stretched full length on top of the comforter, refusing to do what she was ordered to do. "What more can you possibly have to say? I'm a cheater, and so is Tripp, and so are you, sort of, and I'm not in love with that Chuck Basstard, so carry on not believing me if you like. I don't care. I refuse to let you of all people judge me."

"I'm not judging you!" Serena protested.

"Then what?"

"Are you okay?"

Blair was taken aback by the question, but she brushed it off. "It was a one time thing, S, I wasn't planning on keeping him – or a string of other mistresses, for that matter. This is the one story he won't print, and that will never be true for anyone else."

"So you're okay?"

"I won't miss him," she lied.

"Are you going to see him again?"

"No," she lied again.

"Then will you forgive me for overreacting about him?" Upswept hair never lasted long on Serena and, now she'd pulled out the clasp, golden waves tumbled around her face and flirted with her features in a way that made her look more sincere and, to Blair, constantly aware of her friend's beauty even when the attention was on her, more annoying.

But something about Blair was shrinking with every mile they got nearer to home, and she knew she was being unfair.

"You were trying to help." She bumped her forehead lightly against her friend's. "Nothing to forgive."

"I'm sorry about the getting you drunk and putting the moves on you thing."

"Thank you. You're my first choice if I ever feel inclined that way, anyway."

Serena glowed in the knowledge that she was forgiven while Blair dwelt on whether or not she should forget. They went back into the cabin together, chatting about nothing, and Tripp beamed at them over his laptop.

"You should read this." He turned the screen around so they could.

_Send me an amount._

– _CB_

Both girls took some time to process what the succinct message meant, but when they did there was much shrieking, clapping, hugging and more champagne. The Vanderbilts were, for once, twins in their smugness, smirking while Serena danced around the cabin, commanding that they blast the stereo and come dance with her. They did, until they were tipsy and tired, although Tripp stayed sober enough to go back to his laptop and write a long email in response. To Blair, therefore, fell the position of letting Serena doze in her lap and, warm and comfortable herself as well as dizzy and not a little depressed, she went to sleep too.

She woke up in the city that hated sleepers.

New York was beautiful to Blair at any time of day, but dusk made her think of Fashion Week, neon lights and the occasional stars which broke through the pollution glimmering like Swarovski against the velvet darkness of the sky. She opened her ears and embraced the sounds of car alarms, heavy traffic and shouting as she stepped out into the chilly air, breathing in fuel fumes and her own perfume. She'd changed into a Chanel skirt suit with ragged edging, but no one was there to greet them, which was almost better than getting the chance to show off the suit.

No one but Nate, at the sight of whom she stopped short.

"Blair." He grinned the golden boy grin which had previously stopped her heart and persuaded her that a room at the Palace during Cotillion was where and when she should lose her virginity. "I hope you had a wonderful time. Did you find my stash of pot in the bookcase?"

"I didn't have that pleasure," Blair answered drily. "What are you doing here?"

"You rushed off so quickly after Cece's wake." Observing his cocky manner evaporate, his hands thrust into his pockets, his chin tucked into his chest, she realised exactly why he was here and was absurdly excited. "I just wanted to make sure Serena was okay."

"Of course you did."

"You did?" Serena was second down the staircase. She tilted her head to one side and smiled, which conversely lit up Nate's expression. "That's so kind of you."

"That sweater can't be keeping you warm," he said, and pulled his pea coat off to drape it around her shoulders. She didn't button it but clutched the edges to her, wrapping herself in his body heat and the scent of his cologne, something clean with the scent of cotton in it.

Tripp cleared his throat as he too joined them on solid ground.

"Nate."

"Tripp."

"Good to see you."

"Good to see you."

Blair lifted her gaze to Heaven. "Tripp –" She took hold of his sleeve. "We should get going and open the house up and call William. Nate will be happy to take Serena home, or to get her something to drink or a bite to eat first. She hasn't eaten in hours."

"Neither have you."

"I'm autotrophic, come on."

There was no denying Tripp was everything a girl could want: he was handsome, he was rich, and he had nice manners and good taste in gift giving, if not the gifts themselves. But Nate was all this _and_ single, which was why Blair was excited and which was a much better prospect for Serena. She claimed she didn't ever plan on getting married, but every girl Blair had ever known planned on getting married at some point. Maybe Serena wouldn't do it wearing white in a church, but she would do it with someone someday if she weren't in love with Tripp. Nate was Tripp two point oh to Blair's mind, and far less likely besides to become contractually obliged to someone else or to cheat.

He also clearly had it bad for Serena.

Tripp carried her tote to the waiting car, which was good of him, and which gave Blair the chance to lean towards Nate. "She likes French fries from that one diner in Williamsburg she actually knows the name of. Get her ketchup before she gets it herself. No mayonnaise."

Nate blinked at her.

"No mayonnaise, Nathaniel."

"Not many people call me Nathaniel."

"Only smart people call you Nathaniel."

She collected her other carry-on and followed her husband, folding herself neatly into the vehicle without so much as a flash of thigh and priding herself on a job well done. Tripp reached for the miniature of Johnny Walker from the minibar, and Blair found herself wrinkling her nose at his choice of blended scotch. She didn't drink scotch, not ever, but one teeny-tiny affair had apparently turned her into a snob.

Chuck would've loved that, the Basshole.

"I still can't believe it." Tripp slumped against the seat. "Chuck Bass told me to send him an amount. I could ask for hundreds of thousands…millions…"

"Let's not go too far, and have him rescind the offer."

"And all because of you." He toyed with the bracelet on her wrist, tallying up the diamonds. "Because you came through for me. Because you always come through for me. I thought you were going to keep being difficult, digging your heels in, refusing to be nice to someone as low rent as Chuck Bass…"

"He's not low rent."

"He must've seemed that way to you."

"Yes." Blair detached herself from him and explored the minibar too, retrieving a bottle each of Bombay Sapphire and tonic water. All the component parts of a martini were there, but she couldn't be bothered to mix them, so she poured the contents of the two miniatures into a tumbler and swilled the liquid around and around but didn't drink.

"And now you don't ever have to see him again."

"He won't be at your fundraisers?"

"Damn it."

"Or at events when you win?"

"If I win."

"_When_ you win. You won't be expected to attend parties at the offices of the Spectator? I won't be expected to be on your arm?"

"Well, perhaps you will have to see him again. But after surviving several nights' vacation with the guy without strangling him, a few receptions here and there will be a breeze."

"Right." Blair drifted into a dream, but her dreams didn't go where they usually did when Tripp was speaking, to Yale. She imagined trays of champagne held aloft by cater waiters, muted lighting, blurbs and front pages and photo spreads blown up to decorate the walls of a building she'd never been in. Everyone wore black in her dream, but everyone appeared grey and flat in comparison to her. She didn't need him to take her into a bathroom and break things or break her. All she needed was the flare in his look when she entered the room, the recognition.

She needed him to call her, or the thing that had been shrinking since they separated would go on shrinking until it was nothing again, until she was genuinely grateful for tennis bracelets and the fewer receptions, the better.

"And all because of you."

"What?"

"And all because of you," he repeated, for the third or fourth time. "I mean it, Blair. I can wine and dine him and let him mess around with a crossbow, but it's your charm that made everything come off."

Suddenly nauseated by the sharp smell, Blair put her drink to one side. "You're very welcome."

It was only polite, even though he hadn't thanked her explicitly, only intimated that she mattered.

"When I first got in contact, he wouldn't talk to me," Tripp continued. "I kept sending cigars and liquor, and then I sent him pictures of the lodge. That got him interested, so much so that I promised him he could have whatever he wanted from it when we arrived. The bastard understands architecture, that's for sure. Practically carbon dated every beam in the roof while he was dragging the whole process out." He drained his glass. "At first, he was interested in the Aaron Rose portraits of Serena, probably because they might be worth something now he's famous, but I refused and he got over it. His next fancy was the piano he played Beethoven on, do you remember? God knows how much it's worth, and God knows I would've given it to him, and he would've given me more in return. I was worried he might be after the whole place, but Grandfather would never allow it, even though no one's been there been us since Nate and I were kids."

"But he wasn't?"

"No. He made up his mind pretty soon after we got there, actually."

There was a headache building behind Blair's brow from the in-flight champagne, her pulse beating on the bone. She rummaged in her tote for two of the nondescript white pills all rich women had in their purses, popped them into her mouth and swallowed them dry. Town car agency-endorsed alcohol was not Blair Waldorf-endorsed alcohol, so she wouldn't be drinking it. "Oh? What did he ask for?"

Tripp blinked at her, reminding her of his cousin Nate only a few minutes earlier. "I assumed you knew."

"Enlighten me."

"Blair…he asked for you."

* * *

**_Thanks to: _aliceeeebeth, eckomoon, sunshineboogie, Nikki999, Megumi, Sparkleyangel, BellaB2010, alissa-jackie, TaraWayland, madetobemrsbass, Guest, olimgossip, Trosev, Guest, CBPP137, BlackPeonyxX, OrsaliaDam, 29cmk, Guest, SaturnineSunshine, Shessysmistress, Avid Reader, issabell, Oh My it's Evie, henrybass, Caro, SecretGG, CameronM201 _and _leightedandnian,_ plus everyone else who's alerted/favourited/read sneakily as well.  
_**


	9. Brutus & Cassius

**9. Brutus & Cassius**

Blair Vanderbilt: chairwoman of the board, board member, honorary board member.

Blair Vanderbilt: contribution of banana nut bread, gift of two dozen 'campfire' brownies, donation of hand-folded focaccia.

Blair Vanderbilt: present, present, present.

Apologies: none.

She'd laughingly announced over loose leaf tea that a vacation from being a Vanderbilt wasn't something she'd recommend, that she'd missed them all on her sojourn out of state. The ladies in pastels tittered and twittered around their queen, who'd gone back to wearing headbands which matched her demure skirts and dresses and never missed a committee meeting.

In the pink and gold painted bathroom, Blair vomited the measure of shortbread crumbs she'd allowed herself and pressed her cheek to the cool white porcelain. She listened to her heartbeat slow and sighed. She'd taken on too much by making every outing a photo op and answering every invitation in the affirmative. The half hour Indian head massage she'd slotted into her schedule a week ago should've alleviated some stress, but she'd washed out the fragrant oils straight away in direct opposition to the masseuse's advice and ordered a car to take her to the Met so she could personally hand them a cheque.

Now, her body was rebelling.

And after she'd taken such pains over the tea tasting menu too.

Her mouth felt scalded and the muscles between her throat and stomach trembled. There was a good chance she'd be sick again, but people who knew about her teenage bulimia – people who happened to patronise many of the same charities she did – would gossip if she spent too long away from the table.

She kept mouthwash in her purse nowadays, the vomiting was so frequent. Blair tipped back her head to gargle, holding her alligator headband in place with the tips of her fingers, and chased the blue liquid with a handful of dried fruit that was another new and constant companion. No one was more aware that she'd had a problem than Blair herself, and maintaining a constant weight was a lesser triumph in amongst all the other accolades bestowed upon her since her return to the city. Tripp was in the lead, and she'd never been more powerful.

If only she could keep something other than raisins, cranberries and clear soup down.

"You poor thing."

Maureen Krueger was, of course, conveniently passing the bathroom door just as Blair exited. Her Tiffany blue pantsuit was perfection of a kind Blair couldn't pull off, and she hated her for it, as well as for being one of Tripp's former girlfriends and giving a shockingly detailed interview about their relationship days before the Vanderbilt-Waldorf wedding. "Have you tried hot yoga? It can really help with the Manipura chakra, which as you know is associated with digestion."

Blair neither knew nor cared, but nodded, smiled and accepted the card Maureen extricated from the ranks of a dozen others in her billfold.

"It's also great if you're trying to conceive."

Gritting her teeth would've been unladylike, so she mashed them together in a smile instead. "Thank you."

"Are you?"

"Not that I know of."

Both laughed and reflected silently on how much they hated one another before going their different ways up and down the hallway. The green carpet was so deep that the heels of Blair's Burberry brogue pumps, now sold out in stores across the city thanks to her being spotted wearing them, and so soft that the fibres would never stand up to a firm shampooing. This carpet would be rubbed down to nothingness in a few months' time, and Dorota Kishlovsky could've told Ms Savage-Schwartz that, if she'd asked.

Perhaps the only consolation of Blair's coming back to the city had been the letter and the package from her mother awaiting her. Dorota, who'd practically raised Blair by means of unconditional love and Polish curse words, hated Paris, hated the weather, hated the language, hated the food and was seeking new employment. Blair took a day to deliberate before hiring her, introducing her to Tripp and installing her in a newly furnished bedroom down the corridor from her own in the space of a few hours. Dorota, who was overjoyed to be reunited with her 'Miss Blair', was a fan of Mister Tripp's good manners but not of his habit of leaving coffee cups everywhere. The laundry they currently used didn't iron the sheets correctly or know they should be pre-rinsed with lavender for a good night's sleep, and Miss Blair liked cinnamon in her milk and yes, she would be drinking milk again. She was far too skinny.

So there was one bright spot in the stressful homecoming and exhausting ass-kissing.

"Dorota," she said as she lay back against a stack of pillows a few days later, nibbling a saltine and hoping for the best. "Has there been any mail today?"

Dorota, who was alphabetising Blair's shoes by designer, looked furtive and pleased.

"What was it?"

"There was a delivery this morning, Miss Blair, but card is coming this afternoon. Deliveryman suggested you wait until the card is here, then whole delivery will make more sense."

Abandoning her cracker, Blair fixed her eyes on her maid and narrowed them ever so slightly. It was a snakelike stare which had made many a student of the Constance Billiard School for Girls crumble and confess all. "Dorota. Am I the kind of person who follows the advice of a deliveryman who is probably an ex-con or, at the very least, somebody's baby daddy?"

"No, Miss Blair."

"Then fetch me my delivery. I have to be at Maureen's ridiculous class in half an hour."

It wasn't a brown paper envelope or a cardboard box, and the card could hardly add anything to the gesture. Two dozen yellow roses were first through the door, followed by two dozen of the same colour with singed scarlet tips. Two dozen full red roses were last, and all three arrangements were lined up on the mantel above the fireplace which was exactly the reason Blair had chosen the room.

"Was there just one card for all these?"

"Yes, Miss Blair."

"And when is it due to arrive?"

"Deliveryman did not say."

"Ex-cons with 'Crystal' tattooed on their necks never do." Blair rolled off the bed and bent down to touch her toes in preparation for the hot yoga, realised she couldn't and straightened. "Bring it in here when it arrives."

"Yes, Miss Blair."

She paused on her way out to collect the yoga mat Serena had left in the vestibule for her, and went back to finger the petals of the full red bouquet, to enjoy the silkiness against her skin. "Pretty," she commented, and went on out the door.

Blair was a born liar, and today was no exception. She didn't honestly think the flowers were pretty.

They were exceptional.

The three o'clock class took place at one hundred degrees and was taught by a flexible woman in her forties who wore no makeup and no bra, which unfortunately she needed. Blair refused to take part in communal exercise and had booked a private session with Padma, if that actually was her name, who was seated on a saffron coloured cushion when she entered the studio, her legs wrapped around each other an inconceivable number of times.

"Namaste, Blair."

"Hello."

"Please." Padma indicated a turquoise cushion at her side. "Before we'd begin, I'd like to discuss something important."

"Cash or credit?"

"I'd like to discuss you."

Blair could manage a basic lotus position and so sat down, sneezed and excused herself. Sweat was already beginning to bead on her brow, and the scents of sandalwood and patchouli and the tinkly melodies of piped meditation music were already beginning to irritate her. The teacher took her hands, which was even more awkward than her calling Blair 'Blair' without having being granted permission. She smiled beatifically, gave them a squeeze and then let go.

"You seem tired."

"Isn't everyone?"

"Who is 'everyone'?" Turning her head from side to side, Padma stretched out her arms. "I only see Padma and Blair, and I'm not tired."

_And I_'_m not going to murder you_, thought Blair. _I think_.

"I came here to help with my digestion, not my sleeping habits."

"I suspect your digestion is running as it should, or attempting to run as it should. You're tired and tense, and emotions are running high. I suspect that is why you are suffering any digestive problems as yet unmentioned."

"I'm trying to mention them, you keep cutting me off with your 'suspicions'."

"Why are your emotions running high, Blair?" Tiny wrinkles made rings around Padma's mouth, so her words appeared to sound from the centre of a spider web. "I understand your husband is very politically active, which should make this an exciting time for you…yet I sense that your feelings have been pushed into a corner."

"Because I'm not gushing about my personal life or telling you my life story via interpretive dance?" Blair responded tartly. "Any dime store psychic would tell me I was stressed and repressed by studying my body language or, more likely, by reading the newspapers."

"Stressed, yes, but repressed?"

"I wear pencil skirts and high-necked blouses and I don't shriek every time something entertaining happens. Ergo, repressed."

"I have a degree in psychology –"

"Naturally."

"And I sense that your inappropriate feelings – such as anger, lust, jealousy, depression – have been pushed into a corner and your body is telling you to confront them. Ergo, digestive problems."

"Ergo, I'm leaving." Brushing off the seat of her leggings, which were what Serena had instructed her to wear to the class, Blair got to her feet. "I've thrown up a few times and Ms Krueger recommended this instead of a Zofran, and I'd be much happier with the Zofran. I didn't come here to talk about my feelings and I really, really recommend you make an appointment at La Perla before those things end up resting on your knees."

She left the studio in a much worse mood than when she'd arrived and raised the screen between herself and the driver on the way back to the townhouse. The car smelt subtly of perspiration, and Blair wrinkled her nose and fantasised about the length and heat of the bath she'd take in her en suite, which was vastly superior to all other en suites everywhere.

The master of the house wasn't home, and the mistress breathed a sigh of relief. She'd barely seen him since they'd got back from the airport, and though she'd have been perfectly civil if that was what he needed and as nice as pie to anyone he wanted her to meet, a quiet soak in the tub and a quiet dinner of miso soup before her evening engagement with Serena at the theatre was infinitely preferable.

"Dorota!" She deposited her keys on the octagonal table in the vestibule and propped the unused yoga mat in the corner. "Has the deliveryman been back yet?"

There was no answer, but he had: against the vase of full red roses, the ones she'd touched, was an oblong of creamy card stock. Blair picked it up, felt the quality in its thickness and read.

_Paul wouldn_'_t have called Holly. A calling card_,_ on the other hand…_

_I_'_ll see you at the theatre tonight._

Before she knew what she was doing, Blair had torn the note to pieces and seized the arrangement, shaking her head violently as she did so, shaking all over so hard that her teeth began to chatter, splashing water down her front as she marched back to the octagonal table to collect her keys and plunged one hand into her pocket to retrieve her phone and order a car.

_**~#~**_

Perversely, Chuck now hated his office. He hated the prints he'd practically had to hire a bounty hunter to find, he hated the highly polished furniture. It looked as if he were paying homage to all things antique, like the Vanderbilt family themselves, and though he considered himself their equal, they weren't alike. The room needed to be remodelled to reflect a more modern frame of mind.

The speaker on his desk chirruped. "Mr Bass?"

"Yes?"

"There's a lady here to see you."

"There are always ladies here to see me."

"She brought flowers."

_Blair_. She'd come, as she promised, and even having her in the building seemed to slow time to a crawl. It took too long to pack up his papers, to make sure everyone else was gone from the outer office before she reached the inner one.

Chuck was wondering if he should've called and if she liked roses when the door creaked, and the strip of light delineating its hinge widened.

He was about to find out.

The Blair who entered was not like any Blair he'd ever known. There were hollows beneath her cheekbones and her hair was braided and hung down over one shoulder. Every woman in New York was thin, but she was _thin_, her frailty highlighted by stretchy exercise clothing which no Blair he'd ever known would ever have worn. Chuck opened his mouth to speak, but she acted first: the green vase fell from her hands and exploded, cutting the roses to ribbons and sending shards of glass flying in every direction, sparkling in the late afternoon sunlight. He ducked as water sprayed everywhere, falling like rain onto the gleaming surface of his desk.

"What the Hell, Blair?"

"How _dare_ you," she breathed. "How dare you _ever_ contact with me after what you did."

"After what I – what the Hell, Blair?"

"You _asked_ for me." Her lips were pulled back as if they hurt her, as if it hurt her to speak to him when it was her decline that was the sight to see. "Tripp asked you what you wanted from the house and you asked for me. Never mind all that crap about Chinese foot binding and being free. You already had my husband's permission to fuck me any way you wanted, so long as you paid up afterwards. He sold me and you bought me." She backed away when he got up, moving around the desk and towards her. "At least that hooker understood she was a hooker when I sent her to your door."

"You are not Eva. She meant nothing."

"You're right. She meant nothing, and neither do you."

He pushed a hand back through his hair, glanced out of the window, stared at her, furious that she was furious, that Tripp had told her, that he had given Tripp reason to tell her, that he'd even agreed to help Nate in the first place. "And nothing I could possibly have to say matters to you now," he accused, frustrated and aggrieved beyond his own expectations. "You've made up your mind to hate me."

"I have every right to hate you!"

"Why does what I said matter so much more than what you did?"

Unasked for attention and unkindness merited a slap. This was so much more, so much bigger what Blair had ever imagined she could hold in her body; she hit him, and not with the flat of her palm, but with her fist. It crashed clumsily against his teeth, bloodying his lip and opening cuts on her knuckles, but the sting offered no relief. Health class had taught her that self-harm was a way of making pain physical, that seeing it scab and heal could make it go away until you were hurt again and had to do it again; the pain from the punch did nothing for the pain she felt inside. It was an insult to the enormity of it, like placing a gallon next to an ocean and saying they were the same thing because they were both water.

"I'm sorry." He only looked at her, did nothing about the blood trickling down his chin. "My only defence is that I didn't know you, and when I did –"

She held up a finger.

He stopped.

Blair closed her eyes. "I never want to see you again," she said. Her voice was very small.

Chuck sat down silently amongst soaked documents and vase fragments and watched her go while his cut dripped, and the collar of his shirt turned as red as the roses strewn all around.

_**~#~**_

Serena knew everything there was to know about Blair, which was why she sent Dorota to find her after dropping her keys again and going to her room again. She lay on the comforter – the remains of her saltines had been taken away – and observed the empty fireplace. It was very cold, and she was very cold. It was as if the emotions the so-called Padma had talked about had been keeping her warm while they were contained, and then she'd let the fire rage, and now there was nothing but ashes.

When Serena came in, she immediately put down her purse and lay down beside Blair.

"I'm so sorry, B."

"You're sorry, Chuck's sorry, everyone's sorry."

"Is Tripp sorry?"

"I think he is."

"Has he said he is?"

"I can't remember." She'd had so many things to remember since they got back, so many names and dates. They were in box B for the theatre tonight, which she'd jokingly made relevant, fated, by choosing Badgley Mischka to match it. Why was that funny? Why wasn't it funny now? Nothing had changed, after all, not if Blair were being rational. She'd been betrayed without breaking anything or going anywhere, and shouting about it hadn't altered the facts. She was in exactly the same position tonight as she had been two weeks before. There was nothing to cry about.

So Blair didn't cry.

"I have to get up," she announced after a few more minutes of Serena stroking her hair and shushing her as she gently unwound her braid. "I have to take a bath and get ready for the theatre."

"The theatre's not for hours," her friend reassured her. "Are you sure you should still go?"

"Of course."

"Well…do you mind if I don't go?"

"Of course not."

"I have an errand to run tonight."

"Of course. Enjoy yourself."

Her tone was flat, her expression was blank and in the end Dorota and Serena had to get Blair up together, alternately soothing her and spooning hot broth into her mouth. They put her in the bath with the water running and, by the time it was over her knees, Blair was snapping at them that she wasn't a sideshow and she hadn't picked out a purse to match her shoes, and if they _had_ to be there why couldn't they be helpful. Her prep was precious to her, the hours dedicated to the image she had to present to the world, as sacred as hours on her knees in church. Blair sometimes pretended she was Marie Antoinette, that she was getting ready for a ball where fortunes and reputations could be lost on a turn of a card, a turn of a dance. Today was one of those times, although she had no macarons to snack on while the stylist tonged and tortured her hair. She chatted to him instead, since Serena had snuck out ten minutes earlier, long brown boots and long lean body evaporating like Evian mist.

"And who will you be voting for?" She teased.

"Whoever's wife tips me best."

He had a shocking pink crew cut and five studs in one ear, but he was the best, so she laughed and didn't point out the fact that Nate wasn't even married.

She imagined a crown, a tiara, a glue gun and a Band-Aid to fix up her reflection.

_**~#~**_

Nate stepped gingerly over the threshold of Chuck's office, even though the soles of his shoes were more than thick enough to protect him from the glass still littering the floor. "Man, what happened in here? Did you have another after hours party and forget to invite me? Shit, what happened to your face?"

Holding a tumbler of water against his lip – it had been ice hours ago, but since he'd sat back down it hadn't seemed worth it to make the effort for anything except scotch, which was conveniently within reach – Chuck spoke thickly around the obstruction. "She hit me."

"_She_ hit you?"

"Blair."

"_Blair_ hit you?"

"She, Blair, she hit me, you can shut up about it now."

Everything looked worse beneath the artificial lights. Chuck was a mess, shirt untucked, tie undone and trailing, blood everywhere. His gaze was as black and empty as a shark's, and it went through his friend and out the other side and through the wall beyond. He tried to drawl, but ended up slurring.

"So that's it, thanks to your fucking cousin."

"What does Tripp have to do with this?"

"He promised me anything in that quaint little cabin if I'd donate to his campaign. I screwed him around at first, told him I was interested in his Aaron Rose portraits of Serena van der Woodsen, then his Steinway; then I said the most offensive thing I could think of because no man in his right mind would agree to it."

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'your wife'."

On the pretence of leaning down to inspect Chuck's injury, Nate smacked him hard around the back of the head.

"Ouch."

"What the Hell, Chuck?"

"You were the one who told me to turn them against each other, to seduce her!"

"Not with Tripp's approval! Jesus Christ, do you realise what you've done?"

"Of course I realise what I've done," Chuck spat, along with a mouthful of 'medicinal' scotch. "I said 'your wife', and then I spent time with 'your wife', and 'your wife' is a bitch, and incomparable, and indescribable, and 'your wife' trembles when I touch her because no one else touches her and 'your wife' makes me feel sixteen years old and about five feet high! And 'your wife' is Blair Waldorf, who you passed up on, in case you don't recall, and who now hates me. And who is now torturing me every time I close my eyes because I see her, and she's a wreck, and that's my fault. Of course I realise what I've done, Nathaniel, but what you should realise is it's what _we_'_ve_ done."

"This is such a mess." Nate dropped into the chair opposite, his game face gone. He pulled his phone from his pocket and began playing with the buttons like a distracted child. "And what's worse is its effect has been absolutely nothing. His numbers are up. Everybody loves her. It'll take a miracle for me to win now."

"Do you deserve to win?"

"Shut up, Chuck."

"I mean it."

"No, shut up and check your phone."

The scandal site Gossip Girl only had space for short e-blasts and camera phone snaps, but they'd provided a link alongside the latest blast to a blog with a single entry. There was the usual salacious caption, which Chuck had to squint at in the dim room.

_Remember Queen B_,_ who grew up to be First Lady of the UES_? _Turns out our favourite political bride is nothing more than a political beard_ – _Congressman hopeful Tripp Vanderbilt married her for the Waldorf name_, _not the Waldorf!_ _And what of Chuck Bass_,_ our favourite playboy_,_ who accompanied them to a super secret alpine resort_?_ As every politician knows, money is power_:_ Chuck paid up, and Blair put out._

Chuck hadn't even clicked the link before he was cursing, long strings of words which only ceased when he paused for breath and then picked up where he'd left off, turning the air blue. The blog post contained no references to Serena, which aroused his suspicions, and attributed all the blame to Tripp and none to Blair, but that was no help to him.

"A miracle," was Nate's wry remark. "What's the matter with you now?"

"This story was my leverage. I forced it out of her." He broke off and dived back into another stream of vulgarity, then continued, "It'll look like I posted it to punish her or to break up her marriage. You asked me to ruin Tripp and Blair, not to ruin Blair's life…and now someone else has gone and done it, and she'll believe it was me." His fist slammed down on the desktop, glass biting into his skin. He ignored it, or he didn't feel it, or he didn't feel anything.

He had no idea what to do.

A few blocks away, Serena slipped into Blair's bedroom and inquired as to whether she could get her anything before bed. The play had ended late, and Blair replied in the negative. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and into sleep, into a state where her brain stopped going over and over what he'd said, what she'd done, what he'd said, what she'd done.

What he'd said.

_Your wife_.

What she'd done.

_I don_'_t know how_.

A gallon next to an ocean, the power of sleep to soothe her next to the power of the ache to keep her awake.

But she did sleep eventually, if fitfully, Serena lying close beside her, holding her hand all night and telling her that it would be alright even though it wouldn't, even though what she'd done meant it wouldn't.

At least she'd made sure to steal Blair's phone before leaving her to run her errand.

* * *

**_Thanks to: _aliceeeebeth, sunshineboogie, Marine7620, iheartchair, Elise, Guest, Megumi, eckomoon, SaturnineSunshine, CBfanhere, Tess, SecretGG, TaraWayland, Iamstillinsane, Guest, Dimples84, Lalai, Shessysmistress, CarolinaGirl313, Sparkleyangel, missbabyv, alissa-jackie, lpoh, Guest, em, Arazadia, Laura_,_ SnowedUnderNJ _and_ Guest.**


	10. Star-Spangled Banner

**10. Star-Spangled Banner**

"Coffee?"

"Tea, please. Camomile."

William allowed his granddaughter-in-law only one sip before he loosened his tie and sighed. Blair continued to drink her tea and ignored the insincere gesture. The man sitting on the opposite side of the desk had lived through twelve presidents, including two Bushes, and had had intimate dealings with at least three of them. She doubted he'd even loosened his tie over the Lewinsky scandal, and she mattered about as much to him now as that woman had then: only so much as she affected his political position.

"I am truly sorry for everything the press has put you through, Blair."

"Thank you."

She'd dressed the part of a penitent – as if she had anything to be penitent about – but the public had loved her in a white a year ago, and they would love her in white again. She shone, saint-like, from the white wool beret perched just so atop her hair to the white gloves popularised by the First Ladies of her country and her heart, Jacqueline Kennedy and Audrey Hepburn.

"But you have to understand the difficult position your dalliance puts Tripp in."

"My dalliance?" Blair repeated, smiling sweetly enough to rot teeth. "Excuse me for saying so, but you seem to have been misinformed. A dalliance is an affair conducted between two or more people for reasons of lust or love, whereas I was whored out by your grandson for reasons of money and power." She delicately replaced the teacup in its saucer. "What you should be worried about is the difficult position being publicly outed as a liar and a pimp puts Tripp in."

The brackets around William's mouth tightened, framing his disapproval like text on a wrinkled page. "I don't care to hear that kind of talk from you, Blair. That kind of talk is dangerous."

"We're family," she countered. "Family should be honest with each other. Besides, it's not like I'd say such things to the media."

"What have you said to the media?"

"Nothing."

"Good. Very good." He got up to pace, or more accurately to circumnavigate the room which served as his Oval Office, his Vatican. It was tastefully decorated in shades of deep blue and gold, and cut crystal decanters of this and that winked invitingly from a liquor cabinet which had been positioned perfectly to catch the eye of whoever was sitting in Blair's chair. She only drank her camomile, however, straightened the broderie anglaise bow spanning her waist and waited for him to pass sentence.

"Charles Bass."

"What about him?"

"You believe he's the source behind this…this mess."

"Who else could it be? Who else has a motive?"

"And what is his motive? Is he in love with you?"

"Charles Bass," Blair said slowly, pronouncing the name with due care and attention to ensure she didn't linger on a single syllable. "Only loves himself, if our 'dalliance' taught me anything at all. I called you over a month ago and asked for help handling him, if you recall."

"So you did."

"And?"

William raised severe brows at her evident disregard for his status as her elder, better and sometimes controller. "Chuck Bass lives his life in the public domain. If he consorts with prostitutes, he does so in bars and hotels where his actions can easily be documented. He has several minors for possession, all of which are at least five years old. The only question mark is over the death of Bass' father, the great Bart Bass. Father and son were on the roof of the Empire Hotel and Bart switched off the security cameras. Then Bart fell."

"Or was pushed?"

"We'll never know."

"Making the uncertainty unusable."

"Essentially, yes."

"Then why involve him in this at all?"

"You involved him in this."

She flinched. It showed in the merest flicker of her lashes. "Since you're determined to blame me for this, be straight with me. You didn't just bring him up to chastise me. Tell me why. Tell me what we need to do."

"You need to go see him."

"No. Never."

"I'm glad to hear that." He resumed his seat behind the vast mahogany desk without even the tiniest sound of relief. For a man his age, William Vanderbilt was still spry, verging on invincible, invulnerable and immortal. "If you were happy to go and happy to beg, I'd think much less of you. Don't worry yourself, I don't expect you to prostrate yourself at his feet in return for a retraction of the story. Just persuade Tripp that paying Chuck a visit can do only good and go along to support him. Nothing more than that."

"Except telling him what to say, of course."

They exchanged looks.

"You're a very clever girl, Blair, I've always thought so."

"Thank you."

"But don't be too clever."

_**~#~**_

It didn't take much to coax Tripp into leaving the house, to lead him to believe he'd come to the conclusion he needed to meet with Chuck all on his own. Blair changed his mind about driving over being driven, about slacks over a suit and about bursting unannounced into the inner office over a selection of loose leaf teas at reception while an olive-skinned girl with a pin-up hairstyle texted busily.

A buzzer sounded, and she glanced up and flashed several thousand dollars' worth of orthodontia. "Mr Bass will see you now."

"At such short notice?"

"A time slot became available."

"Of course it did." Blair bared her teeth in response. "Can you direct us to Mr Bass' office, please?"

"Mr Bass indicated you would know the way."

"I never know anything at all where Mr Bass is concerned, and _you_ would know that if you read the papers."

The receptionist's smile disappeared. "This way, Mrs Vanderbilt. Mr Vanderbilt."

He was smart enough not to have any flowers filling the vases on either side of the door, only an arrangement of cacti which grew with a layer of cotton candy fluff concealing their spines. To hurl them, she'd have to handle them, which would hurt her more than it hurt him.

It was a nice touch.

Chuck was sitting in his green leather chair and hadn't gotten up to acknowledge their presence. Blair declined to be polite when he wouldn't be and focused on taking in the details of the room she'd missed on her previous visit: she wasn't certain what she expected to find on his bookshelves, but the bottom row consisted entirely of rebound erotica which didn't appear to have ever been read – the spines were pristine, and they were clearly only there for shock value. Another shelf held accounts of landmark trials by date, histories of libel and slander cases, a full set of McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York Annotated.

A chessboard.

A picture of elegant woman in heavy earrings in a silver frame.

But other than that, this office could've belonged to anyone. Chuck merely dominated the space he was in, he didn't change it.

He hadn't changed her.

She let Tripp do the talking.

"Bass."

"Vanderbilt. Good to see you out and about."

"Whose fault is it that I've been trapped inside my own home by the paparazzi?"

_Our home_, thought Blair, and made the mistake of defiantly raising her chin. Dressing in white wouldn't whitewash the stain on her character or, if she were being dramatic, the stain on her soul. Erotica didn't matter, McKinney didn't matter, her next move if she'd been the one playing chess didn't matter. Those dark eyes knew her, had _known_ her, now knew that she wasn't as white all the way down as he'd wondered the first time they kissed.

"I had no choice." He spoke to Tripp and looked at her, his mouth and his jaw and his perfect suit all smooth lines. "After Gossip Girl posted the story, I had to publish or be the only paper that didn't."

"We were friends," Tripp accused.

Chuck shook his head. "You sold your wife for a couple of million dollars and I sold your story to the public. We're not friends, but maybe we're even."

"So this was some twisted way of defending her honour?"

Blair gave a demure snort, the first sound she'd managed during the interview so far. "I don't have any honour," she said. "The two of you made sure of that between you. You –" She turned to Tripp. "Screwed me, and you –" She turned to Chuck, and bit her lip.

The cacti were out of reach, and besides, they'd hurt her more than they'd hurt him.

There was nothing in her hands she could break, and nothing in her that wasn't already broken.

"Screwed you," he finished for her. His voice was almost tender.

A square of tissue peeked out of his breast pocket, white and red.

Her fingers stretched, curled, retreated. "There's…there's something I want to negotiate. In private."

"Blair?" Her husband worried his wedding ring as if to remind her of what it meant.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

"Attorneys are dismissed."

But ring or no ring, he went, closing the door a little too hard behind him.

"Don't speak." Blair held up a hand almost immediately, a hand that was still white gloved and pristine, a hand she could still be proud of. She couldn't say the same of the rest of her. "I have no desire to hear something pretty about me or something petty about my marriage. What you're going to tell me is why – why leak the story, to punish me for coming here? To punish me for having the gall to care that I was sold to you, what? And another thing – why not expose Serena too? Your articles have never so much as mentioned her name. Why keep her secret and not mine? Did Tripp do you a two-for-one deal, screw the wife, get the mistress free?"

Chuck had withdrawn and sat back down behind his desk. She relished the further distance between them. Perhaps he did too. "You're presuming," he began, the drawl as arrogant and affected as it had ever been. "That I'm the one who created the blog Gossip Girl brought to the world's attention. Wrong on the first count. You're also presuming that I want to make you pay for reacting to my note the way you did. Wrong on the second count. Do you mind if I drink?"

"Yes."

"I don't care."

He waved the bottle in her general direction as he poured, but Blair shook her head.

"In short," Chuck continued, tipping back the scotch in one and pouring another. "You should devote less of your time to hating me and more to discovering who actually exposed you."

"Is that all you have to say?"

"We're both aware how well you respond to the word 'sorry'."

"Because nothing can change the fact that you bought me," she retorted. "No matter how you treat me, no matter how you portray yourself, as friend or foe. Nothing can change the fact that I didn't feel like a kept woman until I met you."

"Then be grateful I opened your eyes."

"To you? Never."

"You were a kept woman before you met me." He'd sauntered over to the chessboard with no apparent intent in mind, but when he picked up the queen and started to twirl her between his fingers, Blair understood his meaning exactly. "You were a kept woman after we slept together. The only difference is you were better educated as to how things should be, and you laughed more."

"Things definitely should not be you and I."

"Things should be you and something wrong. The life of a Vestal Virgin must get hard to swallow without a little seasoning."

"No one will ever see me as virtuous again because of you."

"Because of whoever posted that blog. My sins, such as they are, include treating you like property, being astute enough to realise you aren't property and not flying home and reneging on the deal, not divulging the truth for the selfish reason that you would have nothing more to do with me after I did and adding grist to the rumour mill as my gift to you." The queen was now held firmly in his fist, high above and safe from attacks on the board below. "I aired as much of your dirty laundry as I could, I admit, save the parts about Serena. I did so in as sympathetic a way as I could, so the reporters who would harass you would be on your side, so people would pity you, not hate you, so any lawyer in the state would be happy to take your case and any judge to pass the right judgement."

"I'm not getting a divorce." Even the word left a sour taste on Blair's tongue.

"No?"

"No. And I still don't believe you're not behind the leak."

Chuck's temper caught. "Blair, we had a deal. I could publish an exposé on what you like done and how you like it, but I haven't. I could offer to expunge your husband's record in exchange for you, but I haven't. I could pull every string and grease every palm and force you to come to me and come _for_ me, and beg – but I haven't." He took hold of her chin before she could shy away, made her look at him. "I decline to destroy your picture perfect life any more than I already have. I'm sorry. I've told you so enough times."

Blair was livid, white hot and cold at the same time, but she'd seen him now. The worst was over. "Let go of me," she ordered. "And take that dirty Kleenex out of your pocket."

_**~#~**_

An hour later, Blair had changed her white for blue and, with her husband beside her, was trying to ignore the provocation to lash out at the paparazzi and was concentrating on throwing bread to the ducks. She would've liked to leave the city, leave the country, or at least hole up at home with the shades drawn and the gates closed. Tripp decided it was better to give the tabloids something else to talk about, like how adorable they were in their matching his 'n' hers coats, strolling through Central Park of an afternoon.

The chunks of bread Blair was tossing into the water got smaller and smaller every time someone shouted her name –

And to think this used to be her happy place.

"Blair, is it true Vivid Entertainment have secured you for their next celebrity movie?"

Tripp put his arm around her shoulders. "Ignore them," he instructed, chuckling at something she hadn't said and leaning in to kiss her cheek while a dozen cameras clicked excitedly. "Keep smiling."

"I've spent my whole life smiling," she replied. "School photos, dance recitals, hot or not lists, yearbooks, shoots for my mother, shoots for your grandfather, shoots for magazines…it's the ignoring them that's hard."

"Is it true Chuck kept a pair of your panties as payment, Blair?"

"Ignore them," Tripp repeated. "Just a little longer, and then we can go home and change for dinner."

"And why do we have to change for dinner?"

"Because we have reservations at the Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto restaurant. I spoke to Chef Casella personally, and he's promised us a private room so long as we're seen entering through the front door. We can leave out the back after dinner."

"How is our being there good press for him?"

"All press is good press for him. Big pictures of his restaurant, big pictures of you looking beautiful…" He ran his thumb over her wrist, over the tennis bracelet he'd given her the month before. The compliment was uncomfortable, and the gesture made her itch. "By the way, have you heard from Serena recently?"

Blair knew better than to pull away from him, but oh, she wanted to. 'Beautiful', her ass.

"I've heard as much as you have."

"Which is nothing."

"She left the night of the blast. Lily suspects she's somewhere in Europe."

"Why?"

"It's where she goes. It's what she does."

"I wish she'd call." His handsome face was slack, his handsome mouth turned down at the corners.

"Keep smiling," Blair prompted. "And she will. Serena doesn't weather storms well, that's all. She's better at running away from them and eat, pray, loving for a few weeks until the situation sorts itself out. Then she'll be back, more tanned and more sparkly than ever."

_And nothing will have changed_.

"Keep smiling."

Still smiling, they went through the restaurant's front door at seven thirty sharp, straight into a buzz of chatter and concentrated Tuscan sunshine. The scents and the sounds of happy people with generous portions made Blair's stomach churn; she preferred the minimalistic finesse of Masa, the efficiently delivered flavours of Aquavit, eateries diners were honoured to be in and which honoured them in return. The warm, familiar ambience in this establishment was as complimentary to her mood as rich, tomato flavours to chilled champagne.

The private room they were ushered into was lit by candles and decorated with nude frescos, their skins butter-coloured, their shapes luscious.

"Is this alright for you, Mr Vanderbilt, Mrs Vanderbilt?"

"Wonderful, thank you."

"Thank you." Blair sat down before anyone could pull out her chair and make the evening any more of a circus than it had to be.

No one took their order but a selection of antipasti soon appeared, and Blair amused herself by seeing how many knots she could tie in a single strand of fennel without it falling to pieces. Tripp inhaled two or three oysters as if he were starving, then asked conversationally, "So, what did you dismiss me for earlier? What did you and Chuck have to discuss?"

"This and that."

Four knots.

"Blair."

"I have no idea," she answered honestly. "I have no idea why I spent more than the barest minimum of time in his presence."

Five knots.

"You weren't planning to meet up again?"

"Yes, Tripp." The strand disintegrated as she tried for the sixth knot, shreds beneath her nails, shreds of green against the whiteness of the plate. "I arranged to meet the man who's partly responsible for ruining my life, for exposing me to the ridicule of everyone I've ever met and for forcing me into hiding in the back room of a _ristorante_ that doesn't even serve anything I want to eat. We're going to fuck in your bed later, and then we're going to sell the tape to the highest bidder. Want to watch?"

Tripp sucked in his breath.

"What I had to discuss was the fact that he made me cheap," Blair continued, now pulling a chicken liver to pieces without taking a single bite. "And you made me cheap too."

Silence fell between them for a while.

He broke it.

"I wish Serena was here."

"Me too."

Silence, apart from the quiet sucking down of seafood.

"I'm not interrupting, am I?"

Their heads came up together, a rare moment of unison: Nate stood in the doorway as if he belonged there, as if there were nowhere else he'd rather be. Blair reflected bitterly that it was that quality which would make him a good politician, but she was too taken aback to feel anything for long except surprise. He was casually dressed in a polo shirt and jeans, and to anyone else he would've appeared practically edible. It was why she'd bothered to date him in the first place, since his prettiness almost eclipsed hers, although the lacrosse scar marring his upper lip had traded in some of the babyish beauty for roguish attractiveness. Nate was better looking than his cousin, and he worked harder and played harder too.

Such a shame she'd lost her liking for Vanderbilts.

"Nate." Tripp immediately straightened and smiled, albeit artificially. "Good to see you. Come on in, sit down."

"Thanks." He did, propping his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers, indicating to anyone with table manners that wasn't staying long and that he wouldn't be eating. There was a pause, then he began, "I have a confession and I have an apology to make."

"You leaked the story to Gossip Girl?"

"You're family, man, of course not! I didn't know the truth myself until I saw the blast." Nate looked agonised at the very notion of such a betrayal. "I admit that one of my objectives early on in my campaign was to separate the two of you – Blair, you're the jewel in Tripp's crown. You're the Kate Middleton of the Upper East Side. Everybody loves you, or loves your shoes, or loved those lavender treats you had as wedding favours, or whatever. I've realised recently that to win the race for Congress, I have to work on myself and what I can offer people, not try to tear you and your relationship down. I'm sorry for that, and I'm sorry this story got out. No rational person could believe it." But he lowered his gaze.

"You believe it," Blair accused.

"No rational person outside the family, then." Nate ran a hand through his hair and eyed the antipasti wistfully. "But I should be going. I have some business and a party I need to get back to. Enjoy your dinner."

The waitress entered and he left, her cheeks flooding with colour as they stepped awkwardly around one another.

"Was everything okay with the antipasti?"

"We won't be staying."

"Mrs Vanderbilt?"

"Check, please."

Holding hands for the benefit of diners and staff, they backtracked through the restaurant, through the kitchen where single, flaccid ravioli were being laid on a sea of passata and fresh fish was being mercilessly gutted and fried, broiled and basted. A potwash held the heavy fire door for them, flicking his cigarette stub through the gap, and with murmured thanks and a polite wave to the back-of-house team, Tripp and Blair stepped outside into the garbage sweetened air.

Reporters descended from every direction, some clutching microphones, some with notepads, all shrieking to be heard over the din they themselves were creating. Swarms of photographers and cameramen elbowed their way to the front, eliciting more shrieking, and the world went white as they snapped away in glorious Technicolor. The Congressman hopeful, that bastard, that golden boy as guilty as gilt, gripped his Balenciaga-wearing bride by the shoulder while a dozen shots caught every angle of her purse, an Italian import that wouldn't be in America for another month. She blinked at him and shouted something, and he shook his head and lunged.

He kissed her for a long time, for the first time in public. A hush spread through the alleyway's occupants, punctuated by a few 'awww's here and there. Tripp's mouth suppressed Blair's, subdued it, pressed it into a shape which would suit his better. The wet salt flavour of the oysters spread itself over Blair's lips and slid onto her tongue, neither delicate nor discreet, just as the kiss was neither delicate nor discreet. She lasted as long as he required, then drew back when he released her and whispered an excuse me before backing through the door into the kitchen.

"Bathroom," she snapped at the nearest chef. "Bathroom, _now_."

The grey-walled cubicle couldn't reduce her claustrophobia, even it was mercifully free of journalists. Blair's stomach was empty but she vomited anyway, bile which brought tears to her eyes, bile which tasted the way her temper felt. She hugged the column of the toilet below the bowl to keep herself in place and breathed in through her nose until the accompanying dizziness which had subsided.

She was going to kill him. She was going to cut him up smaller than the squid rings in the restaurant's frier.

Then she would serve him to William.

Her phone buzzed.

_Car front. U okay_?

She didn't bother to reply. He was sure she'd emerge eventually because she always did, because she never let him down, because that's why there was rose gold and diamonds around her wrist. She'd led him to believe she was less than human, that she didn't have to have emotions, not if they didn't run alongside his ambitions, that he could sleep with her best friend and she'd never reproach him for it; that had all been true before that stupid vacation, before that stupid deal. First she'd been angry, and then she'd been scared, and then she'd allowed annoyance to wake her up to feeling and lead her down a path she'd signed away when she signed her soul away to the Vanderbilts.

_Mine_, she'd told Serena, and that was the problem.

It was Blair herself who'd gone to her bedroom in full knowledge that Chuck would follow her, and it was Blair who'd engaged. She didn't blame herself for his deception or the depression that had ensued, they were solely the fault of the men in her life, men she'd been a fool to put her trust in. The were all the same, they screwed you over and then they left you, just like her father had.

And, as she had all her life, she'd wanted so badly not to be in Serena's shadow that she'd cracked, she'd allowed herself to be annoyed, she'd allowed herself to engage with another person who could not be trusted with her secrets or her soul.

Her phone rang.

"Waldorf."

Chuck was drunk, she could hear it in his voice. It was rough and silky, both at the same time. A club beat pulsed in the background.

"You're on the front page of everything," he rasped. "You don't have to talk to me, but I had to tell you…"

_Tell me…__what_?

"I know you felt it. It was real, deal or no deal."

_No_.

"I know you feel it right now."

Blair ran the faucet to drown him out.

"We're never going to be safe," he said strangely, and ended the call.

That was the last anyone heard of Chuck Bass for three days.

* * *

**_Thanks to: _aliceeeebeth, SailorPikaAngel, Guest, eckomoon, issabell, SaturnineSunshine, Jane, Laura, Iamstillinsane, Megumi, Sparkleyangel, Grace, alissa-jackie, CarolinaGirl313, Nikki999, missbabyv, Shessysmistress, sunshineboogie, em, lpoh, Grish, BellaB2010, choppymonster, MomentOfZen, Dimples84, olimgossip, EmiEllie, M _and _leightedandnian_. May polo-shirted, political Nates crash all your dinners with their roguish attractiveness._**


	11. Hush, Little Baby

**11. Hush, Little Baby**

It wasn't Europe in the end, but Argentina: Mar del Plata, to be more precise, which was to Buenos Aires what the Hamptons was to New York. On a beach with golden sand, a golden-skinned Serena wearing sunglasses and several strings of beads was snapped by an enterprising photographer. There was a man lurking just out of shot whom Blair thought she should recognise, but she was too relieved to have not only a location but a phone number to ask questions about him, or even about a particularly tacky pair of sandals featured in the photo.

"S," she breathed, sinking into the pile of pillows Dorota had spent all morning arranging at the head of her bed. "How are you? Where are you?"

"I'm on the terrace having some very strong coffee. We got back to the apartment at two, and it seemed such a good time to go swimming…"

"Who's we?"

"I have a friend who lives in Buenos Aires." In Serena speak, a 'friend' was someone she had fun with, sometimes clothed, sometimes naked, whom she didn't regret but who wasn't suitable for polite society. "He was in Mardel already and introduced me to some locals, and last night we went to this amazing club with all these fish tanks where you could smoke shisha on the roof and look out over the water –"

"What's his name, Serena?"

For the first time since Tripp and Blair had gotten married, Serena sounded suddenly hungover and snappish. "It doesn't matter what his name is, B, what matters is that I'm having fun and making the most out of my time away." A few harsh breaths down the crackly line, then the timer on her temper sounded, a flash in the pan, and she relaxed. "I know it's rough back home, I've been reading about everything online."

Her friend – not 'friend' – wound the phone cord around her finger so tightly, the tip turned purple. "Then why aren't you here?" She demanded, trying to keep her voice steady. "Why are you lying topless on a beach instead of being here for me? For Tripp?"

"Because I'm another bullet in their gun," was the enigmatic reply. "If I'm around, Tripp will slip up and the press will find out about us or William will make me a scapegoat for all your marital problems. I can hear your cross-continental incredulity that I'm smart enough to even consider that eventuality, by the way." She laughed wryly. "I'm better off with the spotlight on me _because_ I'm lying topless on a beach. Two's company at a time like this."

"Three's a crowd." Blair finished. The phone cord spring free. The blood ebbed away from her nail, leaving it pale pink instead of burgundy. She curled her toes into the satiny surface of the comforter and imagined it was sand. Could she, Blair, up and leave her lover, leave her friend, leave the city?

No. Her roots went deep into the cracks in the sidewalk and clutched at the buildings on Madison, Fifth, Park. Even when its visitors made her life a misery, the Met stayed the same; the fountain at Lincoln Center, the flora and fauna of Central Park, the heights of the Empire State Building never changed. Rome was called the Eternal City, but thousands of years of history didn't make it worthy of the title. New York was the beating heart of fashion, politics, parties, power, and Blair's heart only beat properly when she was home on her throne.

"Tripp and I went on a date last night," she confided.

"Like a real date?"

"Like our kind of date."

"Oh?"

"And then Nate showed up…"

"Oh my God."

"And then the press showed up."

"_God_. Was it okay? Are you okay?"

Blair bit her lip, but Serena was reading the news and, even though her chapters were a few hours behind the main plotline, she'd find out the truth in a day at most. Would it hurt her to hear, Blair wondered.

"He kissed me."

"Your kind of kiss?"

"Yes. I still haven't got over this chakra imbalance or stomach flu or whatever it is, so I had to go to the bathroom and throw up afterwards, but luckily no one followed me in with a camera."

Serena actually chuckled. "It's so strange. You're Tripp's wife, with his diamond on your finger, and yet him kissing you makes you vomit. I'll never be the type of person he needs to be married to, but kissing him and doing more with him is so different for us." The sunshine went out of her voice. "I don't know how this is still working, B. I don't know how long it can keep working. We're not even married and it's making everyone so miserable. You know I've never been strong enough for times like these, I have to leave, I have to party and drink and dance and forget about it all. You kill yourself trying to compensate for me."

"You never asked me to," Blair reminded her softly.

"I never stopped you either."

"Even on our wedding day, you said, 'are you sure?' maybe a dozen times. I told you I was."

"There's sure and sure. One of them is when you shut your finger in the door and people want to know if you're fine, and because it doesn't hurt too much you say yes, and they ask if you're sure and you say yes again. The other is when you're about to go up the aisle, and your father wants to know if you're sure about the man you've chosen. The other is when what you feel is too big for your body, so you say yes. That's not the sure you were when you married Tripp."

"That's not a sure I'll ever be about anyone." On the advice of a self-help book on aversion therapy, she'd taken up blinking when thoughts which made her a hypocrite – black socks, white snow, white sheets, white bathroom sink, slurred words she didn't want to hear sounding from her phone speaker – surfaced, and now Blair blinked four times and added, "Don't worry, S. I can deal with this."

"Call me every day."

"I will."

"And Blair?"

"Yes?"

"Don't give Tripp this number."

_**~#~**_

"Chuck?"

A bomb going off.

A bomb someone had planted inside his eardrums.

"Chuck!"

Nate.

Nate has knocked him out, cut him open and planted a bomb inside. After recent events, his best friend status was getting shakier and shakier.

"Wake up!"

Chuck opened his eyes and quickly closed them again. The late afternoon sunlight was acid onto dry eyeballs, and his mouth tasted sour. All of him tasted sour, in fact, all of him felt toxic: his back ached from lying on the floor beside his bed instead of on it, and every tiny movement brought him into contact with the cool contours of bottles. Their smell made him retch, and that made him ashamed, even though he was sure he'd blacklisted shame long ago and destroyed its key card. Chuck Bass could hold his liquor and, more importantly, Chuck Bass could hold his specially imported, perfectly aged, not worth the price he paid for it single malt scotch. Chuck Bass had no reason to be lying belly up on the floor of his suite, his mind floating above his body like a corpse bobbing in the Hudson.

"Nathaniel," he wheezed. "Please go and scream my name elsewhere. You're not the first girl I've had to ask to leave, and you won't be the last."

"Why are you on the floor?"

"I was considering having mirrors installed on the ceiling and I wanted to check the dimensions."

"Whatever, Chuck. Why did you get so trashed you ended up on the floor?"

"I can't recall. Did you bring juice?"

"What? No."

"Coffee?"

"No."

"Weed?"

"No!"

"Then I'm struggling to ascertain what you're doing here so early in the day. It can't just be to chastise me for my lifestyle."

"I haven't heard from you in days. You're not picking up your phone, you haven't answered any of my emails or texts…"

"Stop. If you persist in being so clingy, I'll have to break up with you, and I can't be bothered to update my Facebook relationship status."

Nate nudged him with the side of his foot, not entirely gently. Chuck cringed away as violently as if it had been a punch to the face. His cheeks and jaw were rough with stubble, his suit was rumpled and there was a bruise blossoming like a sickly purple pansy over his right eye. One foot was covered by a hot pink sock. The other wasn't.

"Who gave you the shiner?"

"Her name was – who cares what her name was, she was wearing a lot of dark makeup and barely anything else – and she was underage.

"She hit you?!"

"She was underage. Her brother wasn't."

"Seriously, what happened? And I don't mean with whatever her name was."

"Tripp happened." It hurt too much to move his whole mouth, so each word was painstakingly pushed out of one side, from between his teeth. "The bastard thinks that if he sticks his tongue down her throat on camera…what's next, a sex tape? And then I called her." He groaned. "And she wouldn't speak to me, but I could hear her. Who am I, Nathaniel? What have I become? I could hear her breathing and I thought…I thought fuck, that's enough. That should be enough for anyone. Not certain how much I drank before that. Not certain how much I drank after that."

"You should get up."

"No."

"You should tell her what you just told me."

"No."

_**~#~**_

"What's more important than Junior League?"

"Your duck pond preservation committee, which you attend meetings for when you're supposed to be reading to blind children."

"Dorota's voice is far more soothing than mine. What's more important than both of them?"

"The Constance Billiard Biannual Charity Ball, more commonly known as the CB Freebie after you named it that freshman year." Tripp was playing with a piece of Blair's past, a phantom in the form of Nate's school tie, running it through his fingers. She hadn't remembered she had it, marking her place in the scrapbook she'd kept all her life and in which she'd collaged her senior prom nigght; she hadn't remembered, that is, until in flipping the lid of a box hidden behind shoe rack A – C, she'd opened a time capsule.

She'd forgotten Dior used to be her signature scent.

"Why do you have to go in uniform again?"

Blair rolled her eyes. "There has to be a theme, obviously, and this one kills two birds with one stone: the committee ladies recall the unpleasant sensation of yoghurt dripping down their necks and do as I say for the next year, and the former student body can entertain themselves by pricing up each other's cosmetic surgery and having frustrated extramarital sex in the locker rooms, which saves us renting a chocolate fountain." Tripp turned away at that, but she went on, "Not to mention the fact that my uniform still fits, which is more than I can say for the volleyball team." She smoothed down the front of her blouse, adjusted the angle of the bow on her headband by a quarter of an inch.

"I forgot you used to look like that."

"You barely knew me when I looked like this."

"I was aware of you." She raised a freshly manicured brow, which her husband caught in her reflection in the mirror. He shrugged. "Everyone reads Gossip Girl."

The phone in the hall rang and was answered promptly. When Dorota appeared a minute or two later, her face was so grave that Blair's mind jumped to Chuck, Serena, Chuck spilling the secret that was Serena and she demanded, "_What_?"

"The charity ball, Miss Blair."

"What about the charity ball?"

"That was Miss Rachel Carr. She taught you English?"

"She tried to give me a B once. I taught her, if anything. What did she want?"

"Due to multiple comments from alumni and faculty, the theme has been –" She made a chopping motion in the air. "There is no theme. Formal dress only."

Blair blinked four times in rapid succession and focused on her headband and only her headband. Because she was afraid of red marks, questions and tumbling into the deepest circle of fashion Hell, she'd ignored the book's other suggestion of wearing a rubber band around her wrist. There was no band to snap, but she felt as if she didn't focus on the satin bow perched jauntily on top of her head, it might be she, Blair, who snapped. It was too much. It had taken neat vodka and mouthwash and talk radio all night long to even quiet the recollection of Tripp's kiss, Chuck's words playing on a loop in her brain. Then there was Serena, who of course she'd hoped deep down would rush home to rescue her, a beautiful blonde Rapunzel breaking into the tower instead of out. Now there was Rachel Carr, whom she'd hazed and hated, daring to use her home number and dictate what she should wear.

She swallowed back nausea.

And blinked.

"Bring me the Marchesa."

"The Marchesa, Miss Blair?"

"Any Marchesa."

Perhaps it had something to do with the nature of their relationship – Blair as a doll with opposable limbs and the kind of cache which came from years of a cool martini glass in her underage grasp and a cool, heartless head on her petite shoulders – that Tripp enjoyed watching Blair get ready. Her underwear didn't interest him, or the spiced cardamom cream she smoothed onto her legs before pulling up her stockings. It was the precision of her hand as she drew black sweeps of liner across her lids, the Swarovski earrings she somehow managed to select without even glancing at the array of options. They didn't speak during this ritual. It was purely voyeuristic, and Blair allowed it even though it made her prickle inside her gold spattered gown.

"How do I look?" She asked, since there was no one else to ask.

"Pretty." He did the clasp of her bracelet without her asking, since there was no one else to ask. "Very pretty."

Blair knew better than to hope for more, for affirmation that the perfect picture she'd painted really was a masterpiece. The facia had to be exquisite. She'd had enough of people wondering what went on beneath, behind closed doors.

"Are you sure you won't escort me?"

Now her preparations were complete, Tripp was amusing himself lining up the makeup on her vanity into ranks of coloured soldiers. He shrugged. "Pictures of the kiss were everywhere, so everything's going to be back to normal soon, so we should act normally. I never escort you to Constance Billiard events."

Blair knew better than to hope for more, for his arm and his winner's smile to be her safe port in a storm of bitches and backstabbers.

"I won't be late," she promised.

"Right. Has Serena been in contact with you yet?"

She left.

The route to her alma mater was familiar, and so was the excited fluttering in her stomach. It had been too long since the world had been subject to Blair Waldorf, instead of her subject to it. She did always attend alone, and within moments former minions would pile up on either side of her like snowdrifts. They wanted to know who she was wearing, what she was doing with her days, where she'd had dinner the night before. They practically stepped on each other's toes to get to her, and she deigned to talk to one in ten, and that one in ten felt like a goddess and forgot she was a pawn.

It had been too long since she'd been a powerful woman.

What proles and California girls and 'social activists' airing their views via sepia-toned Instagram photos didn't understand was that the children of the rich and influential who were the richer, the slimmer, the hotter and the more influential were aware the world they'd grown up in was ridiculous. Constance Billiard had a ballroom, although only those at bottom of the food chain had learnt to dance there instead of at a private studio. Blair could spot such people approximately a second after entering. Their spines were too straight, their chins too high, their newly purchased spouses smiling with their teeth instead of just the corners of their mouths.

There was a hush when Blair arrived, but then, when wasn't there? She was Blair Waldorf Vanderbilt, Queen B, and she was wishing for a hand that wasn't hers to hold.

She blinked four times and stepped over the threshold.

"_Blair_." Georgina Sparks slid into view in bodycon black and silver sequins. Georgina never walked, preferring to materialise out of thin air when her victim was least expecting it. "I'm surprised to see you here."

A draft from the open door chilled Blair's exposed back. "Why? Why wouldn't I be here?"

"Well, with this business of your husband, his campaign, Chuck Bass…"

"Rumours. Rumours started by Nate Archibald, no doubt. This is what happens when family runs against family."

"And where's your charming husband tonight?"

"I never bring Tripp to this sort of event. He has his arena, and I have mine."

"So the Congressman-in-waiting isn't coming?" Georgina affirmed. Her blue eyes were on fire, a sadistic scientific burner turned to hot. Blair hooked her finger inside her bracelet, ignored the rapid beating of her pulse and drew a straight line in the skin with her nail. It stung, but she didn't have a rubber band to snap.

"No."

"Oh, good." The eyes shone, the ponytail bobbed. "Then may I see your invitation?"

"My invitation? I'm on the committee."

"And when the committee decided to scrap the theme, they also decided that attendees would only be admitted with an invitation. Where's yours?" She held out her hand, heavily ringed; some fool had married Georgina Sparks.

Blair swallowed. She refused to give Satan's little helper the satisfaction of confessing she didn't have one of the embossed cards so many partygoers seemed to be discussing. They downed champagne and observed the altercation at the door with sympathy, with interest and with hatred. "I organised this ball," she pointed out, careful to keep her voice low. "I chose the caterers, the band, the DJ. I used my own florist for the centrepieces. I'm here for charitable purposes, so why don't you get out of my way so I can write the Kenyan orphans a cheque for a new well and you one for a new nose?"

"Don't pretend you care about anyone but yourself, Blair." The black-clad arm swept wide. "How many of these people do you think genuinely care about you? How many of them do you think laughed when they saw you splashed across the front pages, named and shamed as a whore – but wait, even whores do it for the pleasure. You did it for money." As she leaned closer, Blair could smell champagne and caviar on her breath, the scents of a childhood in the second Gilded Age and an adulthood in a New York which was falling apart for everyone but the rich. "You're not welcome here, and you don't have an invitation. I suggest you leave before I call security."

Invitation or not, she was queen of Constance Billiard. Her heart would not make her lose her head. Blair shook back her hair and smiled.

"I will destroy you," she promised, as sweetly as birdsong. "And when you're clinging to the edge of a building and begging someone, _anyone_ to save you from bankruptcy, divorce and disgrace, I'll let you fall, and my fingerprints will never have been anywhere near you."

She went quietly after that, not even waiting for the door to be opened before going out into the evening, the sky streaked with blues and mean reds. It was only when her town car had purred up to the kerb and she'd climbed inside that her hands began to shake, and then her arms, and then all of her.

Blair curled up in the foetal position on the backseat, refusing to cry, her teeth chattering, her glittering gown crushed. She'd never been so cold. She'd never needed Serena more, now she was seventeen again and begging her mother to send her to school in France, to send her to live with her father, to send her anywhere but back to Constance Billiard. She couldn't even remember what that tragedy had been about. This was worse, worse than Tripp and worse than Chuck, worse than what could be hidden in a corner and blinked away in the daytime. Her credibility was gone. Her 'friends' were gone.

She was a prostitute, a pawn, and that was it, and there was no one in the world who would ever allow themselves to be subject to her again.

It was a relief when her key finally fit in the lock and the door had opened and closed behind her, everything and everyone but husband and wife shut out.

But the Vanderbilt politico waiting for her in a bedroom was not the one she'd expected.

"Hello, Blair."

"Now is not a good time, Nate." Where was Dorota? Where was Tripp, for that matter? "I'm humiliated, a laughingstock…" And why was she telling Nate Archibald? Her hands skittered over the surface of the table, knocking a row of chromatically organised nude lipsticks onto the floor. They all had appropriate names like 'Innocence', 'Vanity', 'Vanilla'.

"It'll never be a good time. When you get over being pissed about the choice you made will be too late." His jaw was set like stone.

"This is not about…don't you understand? This is about me, and you have no right to say that. You have no right to be in my house. I don't know why Dorota even let you in."

Nate just looked at her. "He needs you, Blair," he said. "And I think you know why."

"I don't know. I don't care." Her hair swung forwards, concealing her expression, but he could still see the fingernail tallying up on her wrist, scoring line after line after scarlet line. She'd felt like this only once before. She could hear herself breathing and it wasn't enough, there wasn't enough air in the room, and like a child she craved the close circle of familiar arms squeezing her until they became her ends of the earth.

"I've never seen him like this before."

"Nate." Blair's heartbeat was loud in her ears. "I appreciate you trying to be a good friend, but he is not my responsibility."

"The guilt is eating him alive."

"Not my responsibility, Nate."

"He needs _you_." Nate started forward and gripped her by the shoulders, and she hissed in surprise. "Not me, not a shrink, not the twins from room service. I don't care what you know or don't know or don't care about, lie. Lie, say maybe you think Tripp fucked up your life more than Chuck did. Maybe he shouldn't have sold you in the first place. Lie, Blair. You should be good at that by now."

All animation departed Blair's face. She stared straight ahead, her tone cold and flat. "I'll help you," she allowed. "But I won't lie."

Nate released her and she brought her knee up sharply, missing his groin by inches, driving into his stomach. He doubled over, whooping for breath.

"I don't lie anymore. Not when it matters."

In the time he'd been alone, Chuck had made serious progress. He'd managed to crawl, arm over arm, commando style, out of his bedroom and into the living area, a feat so impressive that he'd halted in front of the glass wall flanking one side of the kitchen and hadn't moved since. The alcohol was leaving his system through his pores, and his dehydrated skin was tight, stretched over his skull.

A pair of hand-tooled shoes stopped in front of his nose.

If she tipped up her toe, he'd see a red sole.

"What are you doing here?"

"I don't know. Nate brought me."

"I'm sorry if he offended you." Chuck raised himself up on one elbow and took in more of her: the creamy fall of fabric, the softer fall of hair. "If so, pretend you dreamt it. Pretend he was never there. That's what I do."

"Why are you on the floor?"

"You're not the first to ask me that, and you won't be the last."

"Why are you on the floor, Chuck?"

She hesitated – but then, who wouldn't hesitate? He didn't blame her – before crouching down so they were more on a level, though she was higher, though she would probably always be higher. He wanted to touch the hem of her dress, to verify she was real. She wasn't dropping vases and there was a little more to her face, a little more colour, a little more flesh. She was no longer gaunt, but she wasn't quite whole either.

"You're still on the front page of everything."

"So?"

"They write like you did something wrong."

"I did."

He closed his eyes briefly. "I wish…"

"I know. Now my husband tackles me in public and Georgina Sparks thinks she's better than me, which I imagine wasn't what you had in mind when you made the deal."

"Did you kiss him back?"

She had no reason to answer.

But she did.

"No."

Chuck did reach out then, did touch the pale ivory or beige or pink material. Blair noticed.

"It's not your place," she told him, almost gently. "To go to pieces over me. It's not like you're in love with me. You wouldn't be that dramatic. You're smarter than that."

"Stop telling me what I feel."

"Nate said you needed me. He put you in my power."

"And that feels good, doesn't it?"

"Good? You smell like the floor of a brewery and you don't look much better."

"And yet here I am, completely at your mercy, yours to do with as you will."

"Don't be stupid."

"What will you do with me, Blair?" He caught her wrist before she could pull away, turned it over to examine the fair skin, the lilac veins. Her heart beat hard against his hand. "If I was honest about not planning to ruin your life, what else was I honest about? What uncomfortable truths about yourself, about what you deserve, about what keeps you awake at night are starting to seem more and more rational?"

She drew back in an instant. "I shouldn't have wasted my time."

"But you did. You walked into the lion's den because it gets you off, you like the way it makes you feel. You like the way I –"

"No." Blair stood and shook out her skirt. "_No_. I wasted my time because I had something to inform you about, as it happens, but I guess you can read about it in the newspapers like everyone else."

"Blair…"

"Whatever gets you off, Chuck."

Chuck knew better than to hope for more, for her to stop at the sound of her name and come back and listen.

He would've taken Nate's advice.

He would've told her the truths which didn't come easily to his tongue but which were starting to seem more and more rational every time they were in a room together.

_**~#~**_

"You're home early."

"Yes."

Blair padded into the great room with her feet bare and sat down in the armchair placed catty-corner to Tripp's. He was pouring scotch from an unappealing brown bottle, but at least the tumbler was tasteful.

When she was still, legs tucked up underneath her, he began, "I've had an idea. It's a crazy idea, I admit that, but it's an idea which could change everything for me. For us."

"Okay."

"We should have a baby."

She gazed away from him, into the fire.

"Crazy, right? But what's better than a baby for bringing people together, for showing the tabloids our marriage is as strong as ever, for showing them how much we love one another?" He cleared his throat. "While, of course, it means we'd have to…"

"There's no need for that."

"I guess we could adopt, even celebrities are doing that nowadays…"

"No, there's really no need." His wife blinked four times and then wriggled around in her seat, bringing her knees up to her chin. The childish posture didn't make her look childlike, not even when she looped her arms around her legs and hugged them to her. Tripp often forgot that the elegant girl he'd married had become an elegant woman somewhere along the way, but thanks to Chuck Bass he was all too aware how desirable she could seem.

"I'm pregnant," she said.

He choked on his drink, opened his mouth, closed it on questions and beamed at Blair as if all his dreams had come true at once.

* * *

**_Thanks to: _henrybass, aliceeeebeth, blz7, Cjlefty, Rf, stilettomafia, Sparkleyangel, SailorPikaAngel, CarolinaGirl313, CBfanhere, EmiEllie, Grace, alissa-jackie, BBCBPP130, SaturnineSunshine, seher143, TaraWayland, notoutforawalk, Arazadia, Dimples84, Iamstillinsane, Ashley, ashhy, ggloverxx19, Anonymous, sunshineboogie _and_ Leslie.**


	12. Do No Evil

**12. Do No Evil**

William Vanderbilt must have thought his grandson had hitched his wagon to a falling star, but it couldn't have been further from the truth. Blair was blinding because her heart had trumped the diamond on her finger, because Blair Vanderbilt didn't make mistakes. Even her body had a political bent, to conceive on the only occasion it could without involving Tripp or Serena. The speck inside her was not a mistake.

Blair knew her own body because she'd hated it. She'd clawed at the smoothness of her stomach, her thighs, imagining dimpled flesh and deposits of fat when there was nothing but muscle and nail-marked skin. She knew it like she knew Barney's shoe department, like she knew every line of every Audrey Hepburn movie. Now it was changing. Now the nausea was less frequent, and she was sleeping through the night and popping prenatal vitamins like candy. It must be too early to feel the flutters of a tiny heartbeat, tiny hands, but she imagined she did. The associated subjects of actually birthing it in half a year's time and the fact that only half its genetic material came courtesy of her were ones she avoided. Tripp hadn't asked, so Blair didn't dwell on it.

But she did twist and turn in front of the mirror to examine the imperceptible swell of her belly above her hipbones, and she did bite her lip, which felt fuller and looked pinker, even though the promised glow of pregnancy wasn't due for another month or so.

"What will your father say when he hears about you?" She murmured, then clapped her fingers over her mouth as if she'd cursed.

Its father was back on top and busy at the office, running his campaign, pushing himself down the voting public's throats in the most charming ways possible. When he was featured in a newspaper or magazine, it was reported that their relationship was and always had been rock solid, and rumours of a flesh trade, sex for support, had been relegated to fiction.

Tripp Vanderbilt was this child's father, Blair's husband and congressman-to-be. It deserved nothing and no one less.

Her gut, though, while still small, told her that she had to tell. He would wonder. He would spy and bribe and blackmail, if necessary. She was happy to be this speck's mother, and so she owed him. She owed it to him to go to the Empire in person, despite the oceangoing disaster of her last visit, and tell him she was pregnant, and tell him the truth.

_I_'_m pregnant_.

_Who_'_s the father_?

Blair clasped her bra and flinched. Breast tenderness and swelling were usual early on in the first trimester, but no, they had to happen now, when she had a Michael Kors cocktail dress waiting to be picked up from the dry cleaner. Even folding her arms made her want to scream.

"Dorota!"

So she screamed at the help.

"Yes, Miss Blair?"

What irritated Blair was that Dorota had known before she did, had looked at her with the shrewdness of a mother simultaneously feeding and soothing two children under five and feeding and soothing Blair, as well as asking her probing questions about the baby's conception. She claimed children resembled their parents in behaviour as well as appearance, and Mister Tripp did not have the right genes to make her employer throw her hairbrush across the room, sob over a picture of her mother in her younger days and crave pears all in the space of half an hour. Even Miss Blair alone did not have enough 'passion'.

Blair ignored her maid. _Passionate_, she mused. _He_'_s_ _stubborn_, _definitely_. _Smart_, _unfortunately_. _But when we_…

"Dorota," she snapped, steering her mind down a less dangerous road. "I heard the phone."

"Yes, Miss Blair."

"Well? Who was it?"

She hesitated.

"_Who_?"

"It was Miss Serena, Miss Blair."

"Serena." Blair sat down on her bed as quickly as if the wind had been knocked out of her. If Serena was no longer hiding in her apartment and/or every club in Mar del Plata, then she'd heard Blair was pregnant, and to Serena's mind, Blair being pregnant with Tripp's child would be the greater of two evils, not the lesser. She struggled for words. "Is she…is she…"

"She is coming home. Mister Tripp found her and told her to come home to help you."

"And she agreed?"

Dorota cleared her throat delicately. "If you and Mister Tripp are expecting, Miss Blair, it involves Miss Serena too."

"What is it with you and all these 'if's? Stop 'if'ing me! Tripp and I made love and it was incredible and I saw stars and white light and I got pregnant, so the only questions you should be asking are when, as in when I would like something, and how, how I would like something. And right now –" She consulted her watch, a slim Cartier design. "I would like you to get me the blue Foley and Corinna tote and call for a car."

"Would you like me to go with you, and carry your packages? Or loaf of bread for the ducks? Or prepare surprise picnic for Mister Tripp?"

"No."

So she stepped out of the elevator into the Empire's penthouse alone, her hair curling gently over her shoulders, her lavender dress neat, sweet, demure and unhelpful. Blair had no armour here, especially not of the polka-dotted variety, and Chuck was all in black. She'd never seen him look so forgettable, so much like everyone else. Even his shirt was grey. He was just another businessman, younger than most, more striking than most, already bent over a glass of scotch so early in the day with the bottle close at hand.

"I need to talk to you."

He didn't move. He knew who it was in his suite. Was it the sound of her footsteps? The scent of her perfume?

"I thought we said everything we needed to say last time we saw each other."

"I'm pregnant."

A pause.

A pregnant pause.

"It's Tripp's."

He didn't look up from his tumbler. The keen straight lines of his mouth, his nose, his brow made her wonder. "Did you have to show him the way?" He asked crudely.

Blair tried to hate him; she'd tried to hate the speck inside her too, but it had been made in the search for warmth, to ward off the cold of the body, to ward off the cold of the soul. They'd put hours into its production, him and her, that could never be taken back. There was no postcard, sweatshirt or snow globe to commemorate happiness, however brief its duration. There was only this child, which had been starved and shaken and which had survived.

Trial by combat.

"No matter what," she began, and began to regret saying it, wishing she could go back and strangle herself as the words came out, trying to bite her tongue, trying to be honest, blaming him, it and not herself for whatever left her mouth next. "This baby was conceived out of love."

Trial by fire.

Her son or daughter would have that mouth, that nose, that brow, the eyes that finally gave up on their staring contest with the glass but wouldn't give up their secrets. They were black gold, no green, no brown. They were inscrutable. Chuck had apologised more times than Blair could count, and she was only now realising why she couldn't _not_ forgive him. The feeling had sub-let her stomach from the rest of her insides, and it was starting to stir.

"You must have been very relieved when you realised you weren't carrying my offspring. It certainly would've derailed the campaign."

"This campaign is complicated."

"I'm well aware." A sip of scotch. "Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"But just between us?"

"What?"

"If you're lying to me, and the baby is mine, I promise you now there is nothing and no one that can keep me from it." He laid his cards on the table without so much as a blink, the quintessence of cool. "Not even the Vanderbilts. Not even you."

She swallowed hard. "You may have a bastard in every borough for all I know, but I assure you, my baby is not one of them."

"'This baby was conceived out of love'," Chuck repeated. The deadness in his gaze belied his derisive tone, its sudden darkness making even his plum-coloured pocket square appear garish. "And you and I fucked. We did not make love. You and Tripp did."

"It was –"

But he had already turned away, back to his single malt, back to his silence.

"I should go."

"Yes."

Still the bowed head, the familiar shape of the downturned lips, held her in place far longer than they had any right to. Blair swallowed again, flattened her hand over the place where she felt an imaginary flicker. His effect on her was more than just skin deep, more than just forcing memories to come to the fore and torment her, but they didn't have to. They didn't have to hold onto the pain Nate was convinced would eat his friend alive.

They had a choice.

"I forgive you."

By the time he glanced up, she was gone.

Chuck pressed his fingertips into his eyelids until they hurt. There was a reason he'd focused on scotch and only scotch when her heels clicked across the floor and halted, when he heard the quick intake of breath before she spoke. It was those four letters that had done it, the same four letters that had made three from two. They'd made a child. Blair's child. He hoped it would look like her and not Tripp: there were more than enough cookie-cutter Vanderbilts already. She must be a few months along if she'd decided to tell everyone – he wasn't a someone, not to her – which meant it must have been secret up until then. A secret would be dark like her, dark hair, dark eyes.

Beautiful.

He half-longed for a girl who was her mother in miniature, more of that diamond sharp daintiness, but what he was actually longing for was the girl who wasn't a mother yet, the girl in the pretty lavender dress who forgave him his trespasses.

In the bathroom mirror, there were smears of tiredness beneath his eyes. Chuck had been a fool for women before, but only for the hooker in the butterfly mask or the ballerina who liked to bite. He'd been a fool for a fuck, but then he'd been with Blair, and still he was a fool.

_Fool_.

_Fuck_. Tears sprang to his eyes as his knee juddered, reverberating with pain from striking the sink.

"Mr Bass!"

"Janine."

She'd leapt up from her desk on seeing him, scattering the pile of promotional smart phones she'd been building into a tower. He couldn't blame her. Things got slow midweek, and when he wasn't around demanding coffee, Dita Von Teese's personal line – they went back a long way, back into illegality and immaturity – or updates from various departments, her job consisted of answering the phone and painting her nails a different eye-watering shade daily. "Call Mr Archibald's assistant, please. Tell her I don't care how busy he is, I'm sending a car. Also tell her I lost my phone in a kiddie pool filled with Jell-O and Playmates, otherwise I would tell him myself."

She tossed him the top phone from the pile, which he caught deftly in mid-air.

"Nice."

"Thank you. Janine?"

Her perfectly pencilled brows rose a fraction, far enough to indicate interest but not irony.

"We're a respectable newspaper. From now on, no more stories about the candidates for Congress, their families or their personal lives. Their politics is all that matters to us, and it should be all that matters to our readers. Send out a memo to the features department and an email to the freelancers."

"Yes, Mr Bass."

Nate arrived in less than an hour, his hair sleek, his tie silver stripes. Chuck approved. He'd spent the interim removing books from the shelves and packing them in boxes. He'd been considering redecorating every since his return to the city. Enough had been done and said in this office, witnessed by the antique furniture and prints. The chessboard had to go. The erotica had to go. The Spectator had to be saleable, and to be saleable it had to be a publication of repute, and it wouldn't become a publication of repute until he was an owner, editor-in-chief and employer of repute. Besides, he liked flowers, and he couldn't have them in the office the way it was.

They made him think of her and waste time wanting, waiting.

"Playmates? Seriously?"

"Nathaniel." He clasped his best friend's arm in greeting. "I've called you here for a council of war."

"Oh?" Nate dropped into the visitor's chair with a ready smile. His shirt buttoned up to the neck, and his jacket fit his shoulders well. Someone with taste must have dressed him. "You shouldn't have. I'm up in the polls, and as for Grandfather –"

"Blair's pregnant."

The smile evaporated. "She can't be."

"She is."

"They can't have."

"They did."

"Dude, are you okay?"

Chuck stretched to relieve the ache in his back from bending over as he worked, and used the opportunity to gather his thoughts. "Yes," he decided. "This is a line under our…dealings with one another. She doesn't owe me anything and vice versa. I don't have to hold back on her account." Disdaining his chair for the edge of the desk, he sat and said, "A baby is a coup, but it's a coup for a certain demographic. The twenty somethings who'll vote for you because you're hot won't care about mobiles, bunny slippers and breast feeding. Also, older males will swing your way if you appeal to their baser instincts."

"I'm not having sex with older guys, Chuck. I'm not having sex with_ any_ guys."

"Who says any guys would go for you, Nathaniel?"

"Hey!"

"My point is that Tripp's ace in the hole will take time to mature. You need attention-grabbing, fast-paced, hardcore headline fodder. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I do." Nate grinned, but slower this time, satisfaction spreading itself across his golden boy features like golden butter over bread. "I have just the thing."

"The thing?"

"The girl. I have just the girl."

_**~#~**_

Serena was newly bronzed and shivering in a black flecked fur coat when she tottered down the steps of the plane, her eyes hazy with sleep and her hair in fashionable tangles. Coat, person and perfume engulfed Blair where she stood, several inches shorter, one arm clamped around her neck and the other around her waist. Both were inescapable. Both filled Blair with such indescribable relief that if not for the coat, her nails would've gouged into Serena's back, so tightly was she holding on to her pseudo-sister, her sometimes soulmate.

For all her faults, Serena was Blair's, and she'd missed her.

"How are you?"

"I can eat solids now, so better. I keep thinking I feel it moving, but surely it's too early for that."

"No." Digging in her pillow-sized purse, Serena withdrew a sheaf of papers almost completely covered in tiny font but for the blue and pink headers at the top of each page. Licking the side of her thumb, she flicked through them and announced, "No, you should start to experience 'stirrings or flutterings' in the second trimester, and show if it's your second or third baby. Firsts usually take a little while." Slipping her arm through Blair's and entwining their fingers as a matter of form, she lowered her voice. "Does he know?"

"Tripp? Of course he does. He told you."

"Not Tripp."

Blair was suddenly fascinated by the blacktop beneath her feet. "Who, then?"

"The father of your child? Medium build, master of haberdashery? Patrick Bateman-style attractive, if you like that sort of thing? Usually found with a scotch in one hand and a scandal in the other?"

"He knows."

"But he doesn't _know_," Serena surmised.

"No. Come on." Blair tugged her sleeve. "Tripp has champagne in the car."

But there was no sunny grin, no giggling, no skipping through the terminal and into the town car purring at the kerb. They slid inside in silence, and though Tripp had enough respect for his wife not to lean in or put out his arms, his mistress put up her palms to ward him off as if he might.

"I…" She took a breath, licked her lips. She clung hard to the fingers interwoven with hers. "I'm so happy to see you both. B, I'm so happy you're happy about this baby. But this baby…" She clung even tighter. "I know I've been up and down and all over the place since Cece died, but that's because things have been changing for me. Tripp –" Her look was true blue, absolutely sincere. "This isn't me anymore. I can't be a part of this anymore." He opened his mouth, but she went on, "What I've done – what we've done – is not fair to Blair. It was never fair to Blair, which means it's not fair to Blair, and it's not fair to Chuck, though God knows no one's considered his feelings, and it's not fair to their child. I want her to be free." She took another breath. "I want you to get a divorce."

"Serena!" Tripp gripped the hand that wasn't holding Blair's, gripped it with the fervour of a man possessed. "We love each other. We've always loved each other. You're tired, you're stressed –"

"I've made up my mind." She brushed the length of his cheekbone very softly; her expression was soft, but her tone was unmistakable. "My stuff was taken from the lodge while I was away. I'm going to move out of the house here and back in with my mom. Then I'm going to find a job and an apartment."

"Who is he?" Tripp demanded. "Who's the guy? If I know you, there's a guy at the end of that story."

"Tripp." Now Serena was anything but soft. "Let it go."

"Wait."

Locked together as they were, neither had noticed Blair edging forward on her seat. Now her knees abutted their space and the conversation, and now she smoothed her dress over her thighs and lifted her chin. "Whatever you do, S," she told her friend. "I'll support you. But whoever this baby's biological father is, it's my decision who choose to raise it with. I can't do this alone. I won't do it out of wedlock with a man for whom fatherhood isn't part of the lifestyle. I will be a wife and a mother and after that I will go to school and I will graduate, if you'll help me." She didn't cry, and she didn't command. "Not let me. Help me."

Serena's lips were compressed into a thin white line. "Chuck deserves the truth."

"The truth can only do more damage. Help _me_, Serena." She squeezed her fingers. "And I'll help you be a rockstar or a PR guru or whatever you decide to be."

"No."

"No?"

"No." Separating herself from both her nearest and dearest, Serena picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She produced a clip from nowhere and put up her hair. "If you go through with his, you'll never get to Yale. You'll be stuck doing whatever William Vanderbilt the first and third order you to do forever. Your son or daughter won't ever get to meet the father who gave them life, who gave their mother the only real happiness she's had in a year of marriage." Opening the car door, she swung herself around in the seat. "Whatever you need, whether it's watermelon at three in the morning or someone to go to prenatal classes with you, I'll be there, but I won't be party to this, and I will ll fix this. I'll fix you."

Blair's face had frozen into a mask of shock, hurt, incredulity. All she could do hug herself tight and sneer.

"Good luck with that."

Tripp slammed the door shut after the long legs, the willowy body, the unfairly lovely question mark that was Serena van der Woodsen. When the locks clicked automatically, he slumped back against the upholstery and snarled at the driver to go.

_**~#~**_

"This is so exciting! Isn't this so exciting?" The blonde who'd just finished Blair's powder squinted at the can of hairspray she held. "Is this suitable for pregnant women?"

Blair shrugged. "My hair's fine."

"It's to stop your makeup smudging."

"It's fine."

"A moment please, Jessica." Tripp's smile lit up the room and bowled over the makeup artist, who squeaked, dropped her roll of brushes, picked them up again and scuttled out. Once they were alone, he advanced on Blair, who turned on the spot, awaiting his approval. "Perfect," he pronounced. "Are you good to go?"

"I'm good to go."

"Your first press conference." He chucked her affectionately under the chin. She was used to such casual touching now, and had trained herself not to recoil or ask him why. "May it be the first of many." Before she could reply, he was all business, straightening his lapels, checking his watch. "So you'll be on the edge of the stage until I wave you up, if I wave you up. Smile, wave, the usual."

"I promise you, I'm good to go. I'm fine."

"Then we should get out there."

Taking her arm, Tripp led Blair out of the room with bare brick walls and down a short stretch of green-painted hallway. Up the steps, through a door that was as heavy as a fire door and clanged behind them. Up more steps and nearly onto the stage, where banners conflated Tripp Vanderbilt with hope, prosperity and equality. Blair was wearing the most darling pink skirt suit and not feeling at all herself. She'd felt more and more detached as details of her life disappeared, Serena's catalogues from the mailbox, her toiletries from the bathroom they sometimes shared. She disconnected whenever Tripp reached for her or inquired about the baby. She switched off utterly if the name 'Chuck Bass' was ever mentioned. Whatever had sub-let her stomach ached at the fact he still existed, and Serena too.

"…candidate, Tripp Vanderbilt!"

Tripp strode out from the wings and Blair followed, arranging herself and her darling pinkness on a folding chair which was in full view of the audience without obstructing the podium. Row upon row of men in suits, women in suits, journalists, aides, sponsors, Stepford wives made up the audiences, and a few of the latter who believed they were more to her than they were blew kisses to Blair. They'd snubbed her only the week before, but she still waved and then focused all her attention on her husband, where theirs should be too.

"Friends. Family. Supporters."

_Friends_, _Romans_, _countrymen_, Blair thought wryly, and had to disguise her laugh as a cough.

"Thank you for your attendance here today. I've arranged this press conference with the invaluable assistance of my campaign team because I have some personal business to share – some personal business that, myself and my wife Blair agree, can only be beneficial to the campaign." He inclined his head at the smattering of applause which accompanied Blair's name. "Thank you, thank you. As we get nearer to crunch time, the day when you'll all vote for whom will best represent this great city, we should not only aim to affect change in the present, with more rehabilitation in 'dignified' workplaces, a push for harsher punishments for hate crimes against LGBTAU citizens and the Waldorf Way initiative offering privileged young women the opportunity to add to their résumés and satisfy their social consciences via mentoring schemes with their less fortunate peers, but also look to the future."

The star of every school production since the age of five, Blair knew a cue when she heard one. She crossed the stage to his side, and Tripp gazed down at her as if she were the only star in his sky, as if there weren't fifty more on the flag behind her.

His hand dropped from the podium and came to rest lightly on her stomach.

_No_, she mouthed.

_Yes_.

And she couldn't disconnect. She couldn't separate herself from the heat that burned in her cheeks, anger at being outed before she was ready and shame at being treated like a bitch in pup live on stage.

"Our first child is due in approximately six months' time," Tripp proclaimed, and Blair exited, stage left.

Jessica skittered after her, wondering aloud about cramps, dehydration or stage fright.

"Get me the number for the penthouse of the Empire Hotel."

It rang and rang, and Blair's cell dug grooves in her palm.

"The party you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please leave a…hello?"

"Hello?"

"Empire Hotel concierge service, may I help you?"

"Will you take down a message for Mr Bass?" She was breathing hard, practically panting, and every breath was harder. The speck might as well have been a cage of butterflies or a cannonball.

"Yes, ma'am. What's the message?"

"Tell him…"

"Yes, ma'am?"

_I can_'_t do this alone._

_I won_'_t do it out of wedlock with a man for whom fatherhood isn_'_t part of the lifestyle._

"Excuse me." Her lips were cold. "I have the wrong number."

_I have the wrong man._

* * *

**_The response to last chapter was phenomenal. I can now advise against reading this fic on a portable device (you may drop it) or in public (you may shout or swear). I am not liable for either! Thanks to: _Guest, Mahnaz, Iamstillinsane, alifewithyou, notoutforawalk, Cascia, TH, Jane, stilettomafia, LittL' MinX, BellaB2010, Sparkleyangel, SassySuzy84, Megumi, CBfanhere, BBCBPP130, Grace, Trosev, MissCMorland, carolinagirl313, Yay, SailorPikaAngel, aliceeeebeth, TaraWayland, issabell, Leslie, Guest, eckomoon, Guest, SaturnineSunshine, alissa-jackie, henrybass, 29cmk, Nikki999 _and _Eva _(your English is excellent, thank you so much for reading and reviewing!) Seriously - phenomenal._  
**


	13. On The Rack

**13. On The Rack**

It didn't take long for the newspapers discussing Tripp's fidelity and Blair's fashion sense to be so much trash, blowing in the wind and clogging up the gutters. The announcement by the former of the latter's pregnancy had made the press pack less rabid, not more: they retreated, relegated her to bump watch and the occasional mention in relation to a certain someone special…

That certain someone was photographed wearing a Columbia sweater and a beanie hat over her famous hair, stepping out for breakfast and stepping out, or so the rumours went, with Nate Archibald. Barely a week after Serena flew home from Argentina, there were more photographers following them around than Brangelina, more fuzzy phone snaps of stolen kisses sold to the tabloids. At public events, they stood far apart, blown out and tucked in, their smiles blinding; in private, they held hands, hid behind Aviators and baseball caps and pretended the teenage girls across the street weren't giggling and pointing at them.

"What are we doing?"

She liked to wear bright colours to bed, magenta, mango, cerise. The night before had been a teal slip, retrieved from the floor only seconds before he asked the question. One strap was slipping off her shoulder.

"You know what we're doing." Back to him, she focused on putting her hair into a ponytail and ignoring the trail of his fingertips down her spine. "Who understands Tripp and Blair better than we do?"

"But that's not the only reason you're here."

Serena propped her chin on her shoulder, not looking at him but not looking away either. "That's why it started."

"But that's not why you're here now."

"Nate…"

"It's not," he pressed.

"No," she said, abandoning her hair and turning over onto her stomach. The sheets smelt of his cologne, her perfume, sweat, sex and a hint of fresh, non-floral detergent. "That's not why I'm here now." Her kiss was the crush of her mouth against his, familiar and sweet with the promise of more. "I'm happy when I'm here."

"Me too."

But, long legs still dangling off the bed, it was easy enough to jump up when her phone began to buzz, prompting a groan from Nate. He grabbed a pillow and, holding it over his face, pantomimed smothering himself as she answered the call.

"Blair?"

"Hello, Serena. Is Nate with you?"

She raised her eyebrows in inquiry, but he was too busy fighting the pillow to respond. "Yes, he's here."

"Good. I wanted to extend you both an invitation to the fashion show I'm hosting tonight. Vera Wang is collaborating with Steven Spence on an all-natural clothing line in order to get better exposure for his company's range of all-natural supplements for women."

"And you're hosting it because…"

"Because Vera called and asked me to."

"Okay." Serena chewed her lip. Blair did know Vera Wang, and she had designed her wedding dress, but asking a pregnant socialite who had up until recently been in social Siberia to host her show was about as strange as asking someone to host her show at all. "B," she started. "We haven't spoken since I left you at the airport, and there are some things we really need to discuss –"

"But I've been busy, and so have you," Blair interrupted, then was interrupted herself by Dorota, who was no doubt hovering in the background pretending to dust and listening to every word that was said. "You and Nate are big news at the moment, and having you front row at the show would really raise its profile. Will you do it?"

"You're my best friend, of course I'll do it!"

"And Nate too?"

"Of course _we_'_ll_ do it. Blair, I –"

"That's great." There was the sound of papers being shuffled, a low murmur which might have been male. "I'll have the tickets couriered over to Lily's. I presume that's where you're living now. Goodbye, Serena."

Nate watched her face fall, watched the smile slide off it like melting butter. He exchanged the pillow for a nearby t-shirt, pulling it over his head as he stood. "Don't worry." He wrapped his arms around her waist, and she leaned back against him instinctively. He hadn't had time to wonder if she was so comfortable with him so quickly because she cared about him or because of the Vanderbilt in him. He hoped he wouldn't ever have the time. "We'll have some breakfast, I'll make…I'll order some eggs and some coffee, and then you can tell mewhat Blair wanted."

"Blair," Serena repeated, with a different inflection. "My staying here, are you sure he's…"

"He's fine, Serena. I moved in to keep an eye on him, you moved in to keep an eye on me and if that cabaret troupe who failed to sneak out at three in the morning are anything to go by, he'll be back to normal in a couple of days."

"I'm normal now."

Serena started, remembered the length of her slip and pulled Nate in front of her like a human shield. Chuck's jaw was smooth but his smile was sardonic.

"I know you think I must be dying inside because Blair is married to another man," he drawled. "But I have no interest in panting after a woman who not only has no interest in me but who is also carrying Tripp's child." His mouth twitched imperceptibly. "Start focusing on yourself. And _you_. And your relationship, although I still haven't figured out if he's using you for your in with Tripp or she's using you for your blue blood credentials." He didn't elaborate further, only straightened his lapels. Early though it was, Chuck was back on form, fully and formally dressed.

Only a man very sure of his sexuality could be comfortable in shocking pink at nine AM.

"You look like an Easter egg," Nate commented.

"I'm bored of black – oh, and the dancers of The Box, Soho thank you for your assistance in getting them downstairs with no broken bones last night. They're catching a morning flight back to London and wanted to get a few hours rest and recuperation before they left for JFK."

"And what about you? You haven't been before noon for a week."

"I have business to attend to."

"Fashion business?"

Chuck's brow wrinkled. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"So long as you don't."

_**~#~**_

_Serene_,_ calm_,_ tranquil_.

_Serene_,_ calm_,_ tranquil_.

_Serena_,_ Chuck_,_ Tripp_…_no_.

Blair opened her eyes, momentarily irritated, then surveyed her surroundings with a blissful sigh. Outside her door, young men and women in desperate need of a sandwich were rushing around, jumping to attention as orders were snapped at them by a pack of slim Asian women in pink who had either been sent by Vera Wang or Satan. Steven Spence's personal herbalist had loaded Dorota down with prenatal vitamins and supplements before summoning her associate, the holistic masseuse. Afterwards, her maid had basted her, as she now did twice a day, with a cocktail of cocoa butter, coconut oil and several possibly illegal plant extracts to help prevent stretch marks.

"You are growing, Miss Blair."

"_It_ is growing, in spite of the conversations we've had about letting it go to an Ivy League of its choice if it lets me keep my figure."

"It is not _it_, it is he or she."

"_It_ is easier." She was wearing Marc Jacobs, which was the tiniest bit too tight, but wearing Spanx all day to keep the foetus flat was tantamount to torture. Another concession to her pregnancy: 'sensible', meaning unattractive, shoes. Her back hurt like a bitch and no amount of holistic massages could do anything about it. "Have all my it-girls confirmed?"

"Yes. Mister Spence called while you were in bathroom for seventh time."

"There is someone sitting on my bladder! What did he say?"

"His daughter Sage is walking in the show. Miss Vera Wang –" Her voice lowered reverently. "Told him you would pick out something special for her."

"And I will. But trust an herbalist to nickname his daughter Sage."

"Would be like if you nicknamed your daughter Blouse."

"But I'm only temporarily working in fashion," Blair reminded her, reminding herself at the same time. "Just for this one night. Tomorrow, I go back to being a full time wife and mother-to-be."

"Fashion is your dream."

"Fashion was my dream. Now my dream is for this show to go off without a hitch and for Vera to release a line of maternity wear. Then Tripp will win the election, I'll blackout for the requisite time it takes to give birth and we'll live happily ever after when I'm done remodelling the house in the Hamptons."

"What about Miss Serena?" Dorota inquired slyly. "Where is she in your dream?"

Blair's lips pursed. "In the front row, next to Nate. Mint green gift bag."

"I meant –"

"I know what you meant. Go polish something."

When the door had closed behind her, Blair clasped her bump like a lucky charm. It was currently the source of all the good things in her life: it meant a stable marriage, a _private_ private life, a glowing good girl exterior to show off to the Vanderbilts and those who supported them. She was the Kate Middleton of the Upper East Side, or better, and the foetus was responsible. She shouldn't be as happy as she was about it. Getting pregnant was an accident which should've resulted in divorce, disgrace, and worse, though some might say that nothing could be worse than carrying Chuck Bass' baby.

_This baby was conceived out of love_.

Lifting her hands to her face, she hid behind them in the hope that sensory deprivation would help her understand. The external world was coming up roses, but Blair's internal world was murky and fathomless. She couldn't comprehend why trying to get away from Tripp always took her back to _him_, whether it was in bed in a blizzard or clutching her cell until her knuckles turned white, wishing he'd pick up and praying he wouldn't.

"Mrs Vanderbilt?"

He'd knocked before entering the room, but she hadn't heard him. Steven Spence was in his thirties, attractive, and the same colour all over. His hair and his skin and his eyes were all the same shade of golden brown, his teeth dazzlingly white against such a background. Thus far, Blair had observed he was adverse to ties, and liked to dress as if he were on a yacht at all times

She was withholding judgement until after the show.

"Mr Spence."

"Please, Steven. How are you? And how are _you_?" His gaze dropped to her stomach; she refrained from making the foetus swear at him. The foetus was going to grow up good-mannered, goddamn it, even if none of the men in its short life had any manners.

"We're fine," she answered blithely. "Your masseuse saw to that."

"It's my pleasure."

But she hadn't thanked him.

"I remember when my ex-wife was expecting Sage," he continued. This was apparently the done thing when in conversation with a pregnant woman – Blair had heard more horror stories about cracked nipples and been given more advice about preschool, home schooling and nannies than she'd ever been offered on any other topic. "She used to get these knots in her back the size of fists…I was convinced I was hurting when I worked them out, but she'd stretch out like a cat and smile even when it felt like I was punching her in the spine."

"How is that?" Blair asked casually.

"What?"

"Ex-wife, daughter. I expect you've been in other relationships since your divorce."

"Yes."

"How does Sage deal with that?"

Steven Spence shifted uncomfortably. "She hasn't been a big fan of any of the women I've introduced her to. They try, and a few of them have done things with her that her mother used to, been places, bought clothes, had lunches, but she complains that it's not the same. She says it's just different when it's her mother, 'it just is', and then she goes into her room and slams the door." He sighed. "I'm sorry. Here I am terrifying you with the terrible teens when yours isn't even born yet. Shall we talk about the supplements and their outfit tie-ins?"

_The outfits and their supplement tie-ins_, Blair silently corrected him. Aloud, she said. "Yes, let's. Then maybe you can tell me more about Sage and her mother."

_**~#~**_

"Why didn't you tell me you used to date Steven Spence?"

"I didn't think it would be an issue, considering I used to date _Tripp_!"

They were arguing in whispers, grinning with gigawatt brightness to ward off rumours that they were on the rocks, which would ruin everything: everything for them, and everything for Blair. Serena's head was constantly turning, looking from left to right in search of _her_ best friend, and Nate's hand was deep in his pocket, gripping his phone and waiting for the Empire to call him with a report on _his_ best friend's status. He'd seemed happy enough to be left with the Kill Bill box set, a box of éclairs and the Shannon twins, but who knew with Chuck? He so rarely smiled that no one could be sure if seeing his teeth was reassuring or disturbing.

"Is he here?"

"Of course he's here! This is his show!"

"I meant Tripp!"

"I don't see him."

Nate felt the fingers in his go rigid, and held on tighter. A little way inside the lobby, Blair was giving an interview to a woman with blonde braids and skin the colour of milk chocolate.

"So Blair, any cravings?" Her voice sounded like chocolate too.

"Whatever's in there must be a health freak," Blair teased. "All I want is quinoa, dried fruit and Vitamin Water. I don't want to put anything artificial into my body or my child, which is why I'm so happy to be hosting this show to unveil Steven's all-natural supplement range, as well as Vera's all-natural garment collection." She caught sight of Serena and blinked, but her charm didn't falter. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go see if the models need anything. Enjoy the show."

There were too many people between them, and besides, Blair had always been slippery. She didn't hide in the shadows like some – instead, she made herself so busy that whatever was after her was last in a long queue, be it person or feelings she was avoiding. Tonight, she glided off between two magazine editors and an indie actress in five inch heels that had to be hurting her, refusing to look back and refusing even to wince.

She exploded through the curtain separating the inner sanctum of models from the backstage area and immediately collected herself. Tripp was there, chatting with two statuesque blondes who were obvious imitations of he-knew-who. He disentangled himself from their ethically sourced drapery and crossed the room to her side, kissing her cheek and putting his hand on her belly as had become his habit. Blair said nothing, but was grateful when Laurel, her Vera Wang contact, beckoned.

"Is everything under control?"

"A couple of pairs of shoes we were having flown in were left out of the van," she announced with a cool Blair could but envy. "We were all panicking until a motorcycle courier arrived with the transit company's apologies. Several of the girls asked if he could stay for the after party to say thank you for his taking the time, but he declined."

"Then he's smarter than they are."

"Explain."

"At least fifty percent of these girls have devoted their life to modelling. They know nothing else. They talk about nothing else. As gorgeous as each and every one of them is, a man of discerning taste requires more of even a one night stand than just long legs. Even a courier of discerning taste." Her ironic expression underlined the joke, and Laurel laughed.

"Your husband is the same, I presume?"

"I don't know," Blair replied, as light-heartedly as she could manage. "Choosing me may have been more of a lucky fluke than a sign of discerning taste." She cleared her throat. "I'm glad the courier came through. Is everything ready for the finale? I called Vera to make sure she was happy with my alteration."

"Anything for you, Blair."

"Great."

"Will you be sitting in the front row?"

"No, I'll be back here. It's where I used to spend my time at my mother's shows, and going out on the catwalk to welcome everyone would ruin the feel of the opening. Steven and I will do our thank yous and product placement afterwards."

"I'll inform the technicians."

"Thank you."

"T minus five, people!"

Blair adjusted a hem and removed a stray hair, and then there were no more things to do and her feet were on fire. Unobtrusively, she stepped from foot to foot and tried to force her stomach to perform the usual somersaults it did before a fashion show. The lights went down and she felt nothing. The sound system began to pulse, shaking the room, shaking her, and she felt nothing. She stood in the middle of a group of Amazonian women with painted faces, giggling and nudging one another, and she didn't even feel inadequate by comparison. She felt nothing but the overwhelming longing to sit down and be done with the day, to be done with the next few months.

Then she'd have the baby, and no one could take it away from her.

Not for the first decade or so, anyway.

The show progressed in a blaze of green and gold, russet, chestnut, grungy floral motifs and delicate bark-like textures. Every model wore a sash advertising her supplement, which were based around the seven virtues, purity – for clear skin and toxin expulsion – self-control – an appetite suppressant – benevolence – all the important vitamins – persistence – for pre-natal care – peace – Spence's version of Rescue Remedy – passion – a natural aphrodisiac – and bravery – a placebo, a gag, promoting the idea that women were together enough without drugs. No one had pointed out that the virtue was actually _com_passion, and as that was the dress which seemed to go down best with the critics, no one was likely to.

In the darkness of the front row, Serena's fingers drummed on her knee. She couldn't meet the gaze of the person across the catwalk from her, and his cousin wouldn't.

"Stop."

"I can't."

"_Stop_," he insisted. "It's nearly over."

He was right. There were no more graces and no more previews of Vera Wang's resort wear. There was only the finale to go, and then she could find Blair and –

The assembled socialists, journalists and attractive people with 'van' or 'von' in their names drew in their breath. The last model was brunette, and noticeably shorter and younger than the others: Sage Spence, but that wasn't why they were staring. They were staring because, other than the flesh coloured strings of minimalistic underwear, all she was dressed in was ballot papers, and the only box marked on every paper was the one with Tripp Vanderbilt's name next to it.

There was a smattering of applause.

Serena stood up slowly and, even more slowly, turned her back on the catwalk.

The applause died away.

"Isn't it awful," she remarked to Nate, loud enough for the rest of the audience to hear. "That some people have to ruin events with their politics." Taking him by the elbow, she stalked to the aisle and headed for the exit.

To Blair's horror, from her position behind the backdrop, much of the crowd began to follow suit. She rushed out onto the catwalk and then off it again, ignoring the mutters which would become commentary on her actions in the morning papers. "Serena!"

"Nate –"

"I have to take this, it's Chuck."

Blair seized her chance and seized Serena's arm, dragging her into the nearest town car. The driver was too surprised to speak, and Nate was too preoccupied by the email he'd received to notice.

_I've gone to the office to finish up a few things. I appreciate the thought_,_ but if you ever have my own staff spy on me again_,_ I will take a sledgehammer to your X-Box and have you cautioned but released for marijuana possession._

_Best,  
– C_

"How could you?" Blair demanded. "You spoiled my society comeback, you made a mockery of the trust Steven and Vera placed in me –"

"I'm not the one making a mockery of their trust tonight!" Serena retorted. "Tripp's ballot papers, B? Affiliating innocent people with his campaign? Tricking people into thinking he has more corporate sponsorship than he does, and believe me, I'm aware of how little he has. You're spoiling your own comeback by being a coward, by publicly clinging to Tripp because privately, you're too afraid to confront your feelings, or even to admit that you have any!"

"It's the public part that bothers you! You've always hated having to stay in the shade, having to let me shine at his side –"

"Shine at his side? Who are you, Eva Braun?"

Blair kicked open the car door and Serena followed. They tumbled onto the sidewalk, swaying in their sky high pumps, glaring at each other. Even though her heart was pounding, Blair still prided herself on her discretion. She leaned close to her antagonist's ear and hissed, "Who cares about me when every man in Manhattan is busy caring about you? Tell me, did you downgrade, or is one Vanderbilt as good as another at servicing you?"

"You tell me, but wait: you can't."

"Don't you go there –"

"No?"

"Don't you dare go there!"

"Why?" The air around her crackled with electricity, suffusing the blue of her eyes. The van der Woodsen temper was like thunder or lightning, either loud or deadly. "There may be nothing artificial about what you're putting into your body and your baby, but right now you're the most artificial person in New York. You're going to make a change, or I'm going to make you change. I'm going to start by clearing up a few facts about your pregnancy."

"Go ahead. See who believes you."

"People believe what they want to believe. They believe it even more easily when it's true."

_**~#~**_

Gossip Girl was streaming the whole thing post-facto, and Chuck was masochistic enough to watch. The picture was terrible and the audio was nonexistent, but he could see who was whom and guess at the content of their conversation.

There were footsteps in the outer office, and he jabbed at the power button in a rare show of paranoia.

Then there she was, in his doorway.

"It was you, wasn't it?"

Chuck watched the computer monitor fade to black and sat back, slipping a finger inside his shirt collar to loosen it. "I don't know what you're referring to."

"Vera Wang? Steven Spence? People like don't personally contact a politician's pregnant wife to beg her to grace them with her presence. It was you. You called in favours or threats or whatever. You made her show a success."

"Before you wrecked it."

"Be honest."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Serena."

She looked like a goddess in black and gold, hair tumbling over her shoulders, brows drawn together; she wasn't enough. Serena was glossy and glamorous, but he preferred the old school, black and white photography, daguerreotypes, real goddesses carved in marble or sparkling on the silver screen.

"It's yours."

"What?"

"It's yours," she repeated. "Blair and Tripp have never had sex. The only time she could've possibly gotten pregnant in the last year is when she was with you. She's confessed as much. Tripp knows as much. She's been lying to you."

"And why aren't you lying to me?" His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, the words rasped out from between his teeth. "I doubt your confession is just a good deed."

"It's a deed that'll help separate Tripp from Blair, that's what matters."

"Leave. Now."

"What?"

"_Go_!" He roared, but she took her sweet time obeying him. His arm swept out of its own accord, knocking the computer to the floor, knocking his glass of scotch to the floor, not even sparing the glass-fronted photograph of his mother.

Blair infected his dreams, his fantasies, his days as well as his nights. Never before had his emotions been so violent, and now they were more violent still. His rage verged on Shakespearean: he wanted to choke her like Desdemona and then lie beside her in the earth and make amends. He wanted to be near her again, he _needed_ to. He needed to be near both of them to try and understand, to try to connect, to try and find some affirmation that he hadn't poisoned her life the way she had his.

But not that night.

That night, Chuck Bass put his head on his arms and did not cry.

Chuck Bass could not cry.

He didn't have the stomach for it.

He didn't have the heart for it.

* * *

**_Apparently, Sage's real name is Natasha...but that doesn't make her nickname any less silly! Thanks to: _Kara, aliceeeebeth, Nikki999, stilettomafia, Rf, henrybass, TaraWayland, lena-lena-lena, Guest, SaturnineSunshine, BellaB2010, Grace, A, alissa-jackie, hipskip11, chairilove, Iamstillinsane, Leslie, TH, LittL' MinX, sam, notoutforawalk, misskania, Guest, madetobemrsbass, eckomoon, evieoh, Dimples84, BBCBPP130 _and_ Andy_._**


	14. New York Nymphomaniac

**14. New York Nymphomaniac**

"Wake up, Miss Blair."

"No..."

"Wake up!"

Blair was yanked out of sleep by her maid, who was hovering over her, shaking her shoulder. She pushed her away and sat up, stretching her arms above her head and looking around blearily for the clock.

"It's six AM!"

"And we must go now to get to appointment on time."

"The appointment is at nine!"

"Trust me –" Dorota plumped up the pillow behind Blair's back, straightened the comforter and handed her a cup of decaffeinated coffee that tasted nothing like coffee. "It may take that long."

"What does that mean?"

"Do not go to the window, Miss Blair."

Of course she had to, after that. Of course she had to cross the floor in her bare feet, pulling the folds of her kimono more tightly around herself as she patted the bump by way of a good morning. She knew better than to do as she was told, but she also knew better than not to: as a concession to both, she parted the curtains an inch and peeked through the gap, through the gauze which covered the window to provide privacy extra to the heavy drapes.

"Oh," she said, and stepped back.

It seemed like no time at all since they'd stopped hounding her, and now here they were again. The street outside was swarming with reporters, with cameramen, with curious passersby.

"What are they doing here?"

Blair was surprised when Dorota deposited her BlackBerry into her palm, but as she focused on the small screen, she became cooler, calmer, colder, retreating into the depths of her robe.

_Rise and shine_,_ Upper East Siders_ – _I know it_'_s early_,_ but it's not every day we get to find out if B will birth a prince or princess_. _Sources close to the Vanderbilts have revealed that today is the day of her first ultrasound_,_ when Blair will meet her baby for the first time_. _Sources close to the queen herself have promised she_'_ll announce the sex this afternoon_.

_After her well-publicised cat fight with S_,_ here_'_s hoping it doesn't have claws_.

"Who knew it was today, Dorota?"

"You, me and Mister Tripp."

"And you didn't tell anyone?"

"No, Miss Blair."

"And I didn't tell anyone?"

"You would not, Miss Blair."

"Okay."

Without waiting to change her clothes or brush her hair, Blair pushed open the door with a stiff, pale hand and started off down the hall. Dorota called after her, warning her that she'd catch her death, that the baby would freeze and that Mister Tripp wouldn't even be awake yet.

But he wasn't. He was sitting in his office, fully dressed, and even smiled when she entered. She was instantly conscious of how inappropriate it was to be there: she wasn't wearing any underwear and the firm outlines of her breasts and belly were pushing against the flimsy material of her negligee.

Folding her arms, she refused to smile back at him.

"You told them."

"I told who what?"

"You told what to whom," she corrected. "You told Gossip Girl I was having my first scan today. You told her I would announce the foetus' sex today."

"And so you will."

"And so I will _not_."

"Blair –" Tripp interlaced his fingers and spoke in the most reasonable and infuriating tone imaginable. "Grandfather and I decided that we need to keep you in the spotlight. Everything calmed down once the announcement about the baby and the first round of interviews was out of the way. Gossip Girl was necessary. Grandfather knew you'd understand that."

"What is necessary," Blair snapped, having vivid fantasies about seizing the paperweight off his desk and bashing his skull in with it. "Is seeing how I'm doing, what state my womb is in, whether this child is going to have eight limbs and then, and _only_ then, seeing if it's male or female. You may be its..." She stuttered over the word. "You have no rights over my body, and William has no rights over me whatsoever." Something twinged above her navel, and the shock took her breath away for a second. "You are no longer invited to attend the ultrasound with me."

"You can't go alone."

"I'll take Dorota."

"You can't go without me."

"But I will."

He was still smiling, humouring her, and when she turned on her heel and left, he actually started with surprise. Abandoning his emails and the briefing sheet his secretary mailed over from the office daily, he jumped up and went after her, shouting negations to Dorota as his wife requested this blouse, that skirt, this set of lingerie and hosiery to be waiting for her in the car by the time she was done in the bathroom. She wasn't staying in the house a second longer than she had to, and besides, it might take her three hours to get to the clinic.

"Blair, be sensible."

"I am being sensible," she told him, her smile and her voice icily polite. "Biologically, this foetus only has one parent, and therefore only one person should be making decisions for it. I'll call you later." She dropped a frigid kiss on his cheek, then closed the bathroom door smartly in his face.

Dorota put her back to the wood and began to tap her foot expectantly.

Getting out of the house wasn't easy, although Blair hadn't gone through with the plan of changing in the car. Instead, she'd summoned the cleaner, who had dark hair and ten years on her employer, and commanded her to dress in the outfit Tripp had heard her choose. Blair herself opted for a shirtdress she couldn't remember having poor enough taste to buy, rolled up her sleeves and placed her wedding and engagement rings in a dish at the side of the sink.

The vultures circling the entrance saw what they were looking for: a petite, dark haired woman struggling against the current to reach a waiting town car. Dorota intimidated the genteel Frenchwoman next door into letting Blair sneak through her house and out onto the street that way, where they bolted for a charcoal grey Lincoln.

"Drive," Blair ordered.

"So," said Dorota.

"So what?"

"So, 'this foetus only has one parent'." She raised the screen between them and the driver and, unbidden, took her charge's hand. "Why did you not tell me, Miss Blair? I make no judgements, and I am sure I do not like Mister Tripp as much as I would like whoever baby's father is."

"The baby's father is no one," was the reply, although Blair gripped the fingers enclosing hers as tightly as when she was a child. "How could I tell you, Dorota, when every day is a struggle to tell myself?"

"You were not struggling when you told Mister Tripp."

"Serena hurls him in my face and Tripp pretends he doesn't exist. I just say whatever they don't want to hear."

"That is a heavy burden to carry when you are already carrying one. You are not that kind of girl, Miss Blair," Dorota declared. "The kind of girl who goes out to cheat on her husband and gets pregnant accidentally. You are not that kind of girl who cheats at all. You are not that kind of person who has accidents. You have been waiting for your prince to come from the moment I read you your first fairytale."

"He's not a prince."

"And you are not a maiden in a tower. You are not helpless and alone. Why would you need a prince when you do not need to be rescued? You are not poor like Cinderella, you are not stupid like Sleeping Beauty."

Blair laughed hollowly. "Who does that leave, Beauty?"

"Maybe. Maybe you do not need to be like anyone. But you are pregnant, Miss Blair, and you did not get pregnant on your own, and you would not...spend time with someone you did not think was worth it."

"What's your point?"

The maid shrugged. "I think you struggle to tell yourself who the father of your baby is because it is first of many things you do not want yourself to know."

There was a pause, and then Blair turned her face away. It had started to rain, and fat droplets splattered against the glass instead of sliding down it, attacking the pane. "Call ahead to the clinic," she murmured, pulling away from Dorota and folding her hands in her lap. "Let them know we'll be there early."

_**~#~**_

_Where are you_?

_You never said which doctor_.

_S__top behaving like a child and answer your phone_.

_ANSWER YOUR PHONE_.

_**~#~**_

The nurses were unusually lovely, gliding around like ice queens or angels in their white scrubs. Naturally, Blair would never consent to being examined by patronising health professionals wearing soft pink and baby blue – this clinic was private, and it was the best. A willowy redhead with enough sense not to meet the youngest Mrs Vanderbilt's eye offered her tea and a towel, and Blair accepted the latter without obvious gratitude. The rain had soaked her light dress, and the chill went down to her bones.

"Is Doctor Fung happy to see me early?"

"Of course, Mrs Vanderbilt."

She was led down a corridor lined with pastel prints and vases of flowers. Doctor Fung stood and smiled when she was ushered in, but didn't make any other attempt at a greeting. He had a symmetrical triangular face and jet black hair that was younger than he was.

"Good morning, Mrs Vanderbilt. Will your husband be joining us?"

"Good morning, Doctor. No, he won't. My husband has other commitments."

He was too well-bred or well-paid to comment. "Let's get started, then. Usually we recommend an ultrasound during the first trimester, but I don't foresee any problems. A later ultrasound just means you'll get a better picture of your baby than you would have two months ago. There's no need for a gown or any other unpleasantness, so please make yourself comfortable on the couch while I go warm up the gel for the scanner. Would your..." He inclined his head towards Dorota, unsure of her status.

"My staff member will wait outside."

She glared but acquiesced.

"I shouldn't be more than a few minutes."

Once Blair had run her handkerchief up and down the green couch, she disposed of it and lay back with a sigh. Her back was aching unbearably and her phone kept buzzing in her purse, which she'd kicked underneath the doctor's desk. Stress wasn't good for foetuses, that much she did know, and listening to the dozen messages her husband had probably left by now wouldn't help reduce hers. No, it was better to stay still and quiet and focus on her breathing. Perhaps she should take a spa day.

A spa day in Europe.

Or Africa.

Or on the moon.

"Did my invitation get lost in the mail?"

She gasped and would've rolled off the couch, but he was pressing down on her shoulders, firmly but carefully, pinning her in place. Words would be had with Doctor Fung about what kind of establishment he was running, where he was recruiting his staff from if they let lunatics go where they pleased and burst in on innocent women who were already busy worrying if their child would be born with webbed feet.

Slowly, Chuck peeled his fingers off her shoulders and raised them above his head in a gesture of surrender. Blair didn't believe him for a second: his eyes were black and flat, shark's eyes, doll's eyes, and the muscles of his face were tight. It had to have taken an exorbitant amount of money to get him past the receptionist, because at that moment, a serial killer would've appeared more warm and cuddly than he did.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I wouldn't, Blair." He swallowed with difficulty; even his throat was tense.

"You won't hurt me."

"No."

"You have no reason to hurt me."

"I have every reason. Every right, in fact."

"Every right?" She put her head on one side. "This is my child, and I've had one too many men trying to claim ownership of it today." His teeth began to grind audibly. "Your name will not be on its birth certificate. It has a father – and everything I've said so far has been incidental, by the way. I still have no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm talking –" He gripped the arm of the couch with such ferocity that the antique wood creaked. "About _my_ child, whose existence, while you did not neglect to mention to me, you _lied_ to me about. Tripp's never so much as seen you naked, and he never will."

"Don't be crude."

"You were in love with me," he accused.

"You're crazy."

"Admit it."

"No, because it's not true. Would you like to discuss something else, like my placenta?"

He rocked back on his heels and actually chuckled.

"_What_?"

"I came here prepared to threaten you with legal action...and then I realised. There's always going to be something between us. You'll let me back in, even if you don't think you want to, even if Tripp doesn't want you to." Chuck was so close that his breath ruffled her hair. "Shall I explain why?"

"Why you're wrong? Yes, please do."

"'This baby was made out of love.'"

Blair matched his stare with one just as uncompromising. "You're out of your mind."

"And now I remember why I liked you." He slipped his hand inside the straining buttons of her shirtdress, stroked the stretched skin of her stomach.

Another inch, and she could kiss him.

But she wouldn't.

"Do that again, and I'll have you arrested for assault."

Chuck's mouth twisted but he withdrew, settling into the chair at her side. "I wanted to kill you when I found out," he stated. "That you were having my child, and that you lied to me. That you planned never to allow me to see or be near my child, never to be honest with me and negotiate something which might mean we both make it out of this pregnancy alive. I assure you, this is just the first of many happy occasions I will crash and many happy memories I will infect with my presence. I won't stop until you give up, until you give in. Not until you give me the rights I am only due as this child's father."

"I would rather bring it up a bastard."

"It is a Basstard." He pronounced the word differently so she understood its meaning. "Whether you like it or not."

"There is nothing between us, Chuck."

"Nothing but twenty three pairs of chromosomes and a human life we're both complicit in."

Doctor Fung chose that as his cue to enter, smiling as broadly as ever. He held a dish of gel and stopped short when he saw that his patient had company.

"Everything seems to be in order – oh, should I –"

"Mr Bass is here in a public relations capacity," Blair cut in. Chuck snorted, but she ignored him.

"And will Mr Bass be present for the scan?"

"For public relations purposes."

"Very well. Unbutton your dress, please."

Reluctantly, Blair undid the buttons which ran from her collar to her waist. She couldn't even look at Chuck, but she heard his breath hiss between his teeth.

"This shouldn't be too cold," Doctor Fung said cheerfully, and slathered the gel over Blair's exposed flesh.

It wasn't cold, but it was uncomfortable, as was the pressure of the transducer shifting backwards and forwards; it didn't matter, though, not when the screen resolved into a blurry swirl of grey and black and the doctor began to reel off a string of organs. She was captivated.

"There are the kidneys, and that's the liver...and that there is a very healthy heart. The brain mass is excellent. Your baby's going to be a National Merit Scholar, Mrs Vanderbilt."

Chuck rolled his eyes to Heaven. "I could've told you that."

Both the doctor and the mother ignored him.

"Can you see the sex?"

"She doesn't want to know the sex."

"Yes, yes she does."

"No, she does not."

"Blair –"

"_Charles_." She curled her fingers into a fist, but he curled his fingers over hers. The jolt which raced up her arm could only be due to the high frequency waves bouncing off her foetus, although she'd never read about that happening during an ultrasound.

Doctor Fung cleared his throat. "She – apologies, Mrs Vanderbilt, we call all babies she at this point of gestation – is sitting with her legs crossed, so I'm afraid I can't say either way. She's developing very well, in any case, and will continue to do so as long as you make sure you're well nourished, take plenty of exercise and try to reduce any sources of stress." He crossed to the printer, and before Blair could gather herself and snatch her hand back, Chuck had raised it to his mouth. He kissed the inside of her wrist, tasted the pulse whose rate matched the steady _thump_-_thump_-_thump _which had been audible ever since the monitor was turned on.

And now he'd turned her on too.

Blair drew back from the jaws of the beast, and he smirked, and she felt the same jolt as when he'd held her hand. At the same time, a ridiculously small fist or foot struck out below her breastbone, leaving left her breathless.

"Breakfast?" He offered when she'd cleaned up and the doctor had bowed and scraped them all the way out to the street.

"Go home, Chuck."

"We're not done talking."

She smiled with her glossed lips, not with her eyes, slipping the ultrasound photo into her purse and refusing to notice the way he followed it with his gaze. "Think of my belly late at night if you have to. Pay extra for a pregnant hooker. Just stay away from Tripp and I."

"I can't. You have something of mine that I've decided needs to know I exist."

"Un-decide, then."

"Get a divorce, then."

"I never fell for you." Blair heard Dorota fall into step behind her and tried not to bite her tongue, as she'd been taught to when she was a little girl who lied when she was denied. "You can have casual sex, I can have casual sex, Tripp can have casual sex. An orgasm or two and an accidental pregnancy do not an epic romance make."

"But they do a life make."

"A life you will never be a part of!"

Chuck stiffened. "Whatever you want," he promised, the omnipresent black limo purring into place at the kerb a perfect match for the omnipotent arrogance of his features. It was a mask, and underneath there was a man, but right then she was being kicked from the inside and wasn't interested in either. "Wherever you want it, I'm going to be there to take it away from you."

"You have no idea what I want."

"Do you?"

The car door was opened, and then it was closed, and then he was gone – but not really. His threats, his accusations and his presence still lingered. It was like having it out with Richard Burton, or Lord Byron, or someone as equally dark and dramatic.

Satan, maybe.

Not that that had any effect on her.

She'd been planning a visit to William anyway.

He was in his work office this time and he wasn't busy, or his schedule had been swiftly cleared to make room for her. Blair had tied a scarf around her hair and donned sunglasses on her way into the building, both of which she handed off to his bemused secretary. Proud that her bump was now proud of her body and practically speaking for itself, she arranged herself in the chair opposite him with her arms wrapped tenderly around it.

"Yale," she pronounced, not at all tenderly.

"A wonderful school."

"You need to give me a written statement with the details of when I'm going to attend, how my studies will be funded and who will accompany me."

"I need to do no such thing." The Vanderbilt patriarch's tone was still as comfortable as old slippers. She doubted an earthquake would shake him. "Frankly, I object to you dropping by unannounced and without your husband so close to going to the polls. The contract between my grandson and yourself works both ways, Blair. It's him you should be brow-beating about when you're going to get your payoff which, bear in mind, you're getting in return for the hardship of living the high life and emerging spotless from that nasty Bass business, not to mention ensuring your child will want for nothing." He studied her from beneath heavy brows. "Now, I can put a call through to Dean Berube as soon as you like, by which I mean as soon as Tripp likes. I suggest you go home. I suggest you have a candid conversation with your husband."

He noticed the absence of both engagement diamond and wedding band on her left hand, and the brows rose.

Blair didn't appear to be breathing. Then, she sat back in her seat. "May I ask you a question?" She inquired, crossing her legs as she very rarely allowed herself to do.

"Of course, though I can't guarantee I'll answer it."

"You're a businessman. What would you do, in my position? Would you sit at home and wait for a future that may never come?"

"I would honour my wedding vows," William replied sternly. "And take my husband to my doctor's appointments next time instead of certain unsuitable others."

She flinched.

"Did you really believe we wouldn't find out?"

"I didn't invite him. He just came."

"I see, similar to you were _just_ observed at the offices of the New York Spectator and taking the elevator to the penthouse of the Hotel Empire. Similar to how you're _just_ putting both of my grandsons' campaigns for Congress in jeopardy."

"And how am I doing that, exactly?"

William shook his head with exaggerated reproach. "Your public fights with Serena van der Woodsen, the bad blood between yourself and other young women like Georgina Sparks, that debacle of a fashion show and the frequency with which your name is used to raise viewership of gossip websites doesn't bode well for either Tripp or Nate, regardless of their personal merits.."

"But Tripp's going to win. You chose him because you believe he can win."

"Perhaps you should try telling him that."

_**~#~**_

It had rained all day, and it appeared as if it would most likely rain all night. The house was silent when Blair crept in through the front door, completely silent but for the rattle of rain on the window panes and the hiss of the heat and the air.

"Tripp?" She called.

Light spilled out from a doorway halfway down the hall. A jazz CD was playing softly.

"In here."

He was lying on the floor of the great room, dangerously close to the fire, even more dangerously close considering the waves of alcohol wafting off him. The warmth in the room and the ripe smell of body odour and whisky caught at the back of Blair's throat, but she went in anyway, folding to her knees at his side in a posture that wouldn't be possible in a month or so, or even less.

"Why?" He was so pitiful, she couldn't help brushing the tousled hair off his forehead.

"I'm going to lose," he rasped. "And then you won't have anything, and you won't be with me anymore, and Serena, and the baby...the fucking baby."

Blair didn't have time to move away, and he was surprisingly quick for someone so intoxicated. He lunged for her, hugging her around the waist and pressing his nose into her belly. He was dead weight, and she swayed.

"You bitch," Tripp kept mumbling over and over, as his wife's hand hovered above his head, unsure whether to stroke or to strike."You bitch, you bitch, you bitch."

Blair didn't know who he was referring to: to her, his Jackie O, his campaign queen; to Serena, nothing and everything to him now the currency of her love had passed from cousin to cousin; to the foetus, who, until further notice, would be a she.

_You have no idea what I want_.

_Do you_?

"A boy," she whispered, surprising herself, staring determinedly up at the ceiling instead of down at the mess of her husband in her lap.

Blair Waldorf wanted to go to Yale, and Blair Waldorf wanted a boy.

* * *

**_Here's an apology that's not really an apology: I'm sorry that this has taken so long to be updated, but I've been busy elsewhere - it's exam season and final deadlines season and summer work and summer work experience time again, so lots of stress, lots of sleepless nights and general angst. Keep your fingers crossed? Thanks to:_ stilettomafia, Dimples84, aliceeeebeth, blz7, Guest, eckomoon, alissa-jackie, TaraWayland, Shooting Star, Grace, Rf, Trosev, BellaB2010, notoutforawalk, Vero, CBfanhere, Eva, qielaweila, lena-lena-lena, Nikki999, BlackPeonyxX, Paystin4Life, Moonflower26, carolinagirl313, champylin, Rachel _and_ tvaloha.**


	15. T Minus B

**15. T Minus B**

"I can't talk to you, Serena."

Silence.

"I can't talk to you, and I really wish I could."

The BlackBerry screen was blank. She hadn't been able to bring herself to dial the number.

"I'm mad with you, but who else can I talk to? Dorota tries not to judge, but she's an employee, and I can tell she does anyway. You do too, I guess...I need someone to listen. None of the men in my life will listen. Tripp won't listen when I tell him that I want to get away from him, that I want to go to Yale, that I've changed like you have, that I might never be the same again; I haven't said it in so many words, but I...and Chuck won't listen when I tell him I don't want him, that I didn't fall for him. He won't go away and give me space so I can stop…so I can talk myself out of having feelings. Feelings make life with Tripp impossible."

Silence.

"I'm having a baby, Serena."

It was just her and _her_ in the room, as Doctor Fung called it: the child whose sex couldn't be seen on the ultrasound. It was just her and _her_, sitting up in bed, watching the mist rise off the bars of the Juliet balcony and the room flood with pale, creamy light.

"I can't have a baby on my own."

Blair swallowed –

"You can't let me have a baby on my own."

And ended the call. She held down the button even though the conversation was make-believe, even though there was no one on the other end of the line to tell her not to go.

Then she got up, put on a robe, and walked down the hall to get into bed with her husband.

He held her hand in private nowadays, and only seemed able to unwind when she was with him, pouring him a measure of blended whisky or proofreading one of his speeches; not today, though. November used to be all about Blair's birthday, but now it was all about the campaign, and today was all about the people of New York deciding if Tripp or his slightly younger, slightly handsomer and slightly more personable cousin would be their next representative.

She had the utmost faith in him.

She had to.

"Tripp."

"We should leave for campaign HQ in an hour, two at the most. Wear blue, a sweater set or a dress or something. You know what'll work." His gaze darted around the room, taking in the dawn creeping across the floor towards them and his day of reckoning looming.

"Tripp," Blair repeated, not to be dissuaded. "Promise me."

"I've already promised."

"It would make me happy to hear it again." She tugged playfully on his fingers, avoiding touching his wedding ring. "Please."

He sighed. "Blair, if I win today, you have my permission, on behalf of myself and my family, to go and live your own life. You can divorce me if you deem it necessary, or we can stay together, which is what would make _me_ happy. I promise that if I win today, you'll be free to make your own decision on the matter."

"Like the voters."

"Yes."

"Thank you, Tripp."

"And, like them, I hope you choose me."

"I know."

"I'd like you to stay with me. I'd like a wife and a family."

"I know."

That sat in silence for half an hour, maybe more, until Blair excused herself to start her toilette. She wouldn't go as far as blue eyeshadow, she teased – even a man ignorant about cosmetics should know that was a bad idea. She was still smiling when she sat down at her vanity, face prettily framed by dark brown curls which Dorota would soon iron into more conservative smoothness, no shadow or liner or mascara altering the similar dark brown of her irises.

She retrieved her phone from the pocket of her robe, placed it on the tabletop, and tapped it lightly to end the recording.

She had the utmost faith in him.

She had to.

But she had to have insurance.

Her reflection smiled back at her, but her good mood only lasted as long as it took to get dressed. It faded when their car drew up outside a familiar building, towering high above West 63rd Street.

"Tripp?"

"Yes?"

"Why are we at the Empire?"

"This is Chuck Bass' hotel." He wouldn't look at her. "And when all is said and done, he's donated a great deal to the campaign, and when he offered...I owe him." He wasn't only referring to the money, she realised that. He believed more than hoped she'd stay with him – you didn't just leave Tripp Vanderbilt, not unless you were Serena van der Woodsen or Helen of Troy – and so he believed he was depriving Chuck of fatherhood. Blair knew better: it was she who was depriving Chuck of fatherhood, for his good as well as hers. She called the shots. She carried both men's hopes inside her, sheltered inside a bubble of amniotic fluid, drawing strength from her blood.

"I hope he has room service."

Mollified, Tripp actually chuckled. "I called earlier to order a breakfast selection for you. We need to keep your strength up today."

"We both need to keep our strength up today."

Blair didn't hold his hand as they rode the elevator up to the top floor. Hers were sweating. She kept them tucked behind her back, the picture of propriety, surreptitiously wiping her palms on her blue tweed skirt. A cluster of rosebuds on a slim band nestled in her hair, their petals rippling in the draught from the vents.

Thankfully, the suite was a hive of activity, aides shooting coffee like it was tequila and family members who'd put their money on Tripp over Nate gossiping about their up-and-coming relative or making frantic phone calls to everyone they thought might be helpful. There was time before they were surrounded for Tripp to straighten his tie and lay his hand on his heart to express overwhelming gratitude, and for Blair to put her game face on. There was a showdown due, and she'd appreciate it coming quickly so she could eat something.

A chair knocked into the back of her knees. She wobbled, then sat down abruptly.

"How kind," she said, and didn't mean it.

"Women used to go into confinement during pregnancy. If the most I can do is to ensure that you sit down and remove your ridiculous glass slippers, so be it."

"They're not ridiculous." They were Viviers, and they were blue, and they were worth a hell of a lot more than glass slippers. She glanced over her shoulder at him. Chuck's suit was single-breasted, French navy, and he was sporting a boutonniere as if this were a wedding instead of possibly a funeral for her future. "They're –"

"They're Viviers, and you would consider taking your shoes off in public inappropriate." The day or two since they'd seen each other appeared to have softened him. The miniature rose in his buttonhole helped, and his eyes had gone back from black to their particular shade of hazel, no green, no brown. "How are you, by the way?"

"I'm okay. Thanks for asking."

"Your husband was very...non-specific in his food order."

"He would be."

"So I had my staff prepare you something very particular."

A gold-rimmed coffee cup descended to hang temptingly in the air before her. She hesitated, but Tripp was occupied elsewhere in the room, watching one of three screens where pundits were discussing the incestuous battle of cousin against cousin.

"There'd better not be arsenic in this."

"If my desire was to kill you, there are subtler ways."

Wrapping both her hands around the cup, which instantly warmed them, she sipped and frowned.

"It's not right."

"No?"

"You watched me make it."

"I did."

"Did you happen to notice what kind of milk I used?"

"Should I have?"

"This is skim," she reported, almost peeking at him again, almost leaning back in her chair and letting her guard down for however long it took to drink the spiced milk. "Chilli and vanilla are both rich flavours that like rich flavours, so you should use full fat milk or cream, and you shouldn't go to so much trouble for someone I know you have very little respect for." Blair gripped the cup hard, her fingertips twitching as she recalled their last exchange. In the cold light of election day, it seemed so much more dramatic, and so much more pathetic.

Chuck Bass didn't go to the mountain; the mountain came to him. He turned the chair around but stayed standing, forcing her to raise her head.

"I respect you," he replied. "And not purely because of my investment."

Like Tripp, he wasn't only referring to money.

"But what you said –"

"Holds. Nothing but changing your mind will be acceptable to me. Today, however, we have a mutual interest. I will always endeavour to keep you physically comfortable when we're together, but other than that, all bets are off."

"And by bets you mean politeness, personal boundaries, the law..."

"I doubt you want to know what the law would have to say about our situation." Chuck was intent on Tripp for a minute, the angle of his jaw striking and its set worrying. "That's enough for today. Someone will bring out your breakfast." He suddenly let go his grip on the chair and walked away. In less than five seconds, he was whispering something into the ear of a long-legged, redheaded journalist, and Blair might've dreamed that he'd been sweet to her.

She couldn't make him out. She couldn't understand why a playboy would be so fixated on being a father, why that playboy had been so fixated on seeing her again when they got back to the city. He could be charming, cruel, kind, confusing. He was going to destroy her, one way or another, either because Blair found a way out of her marriage contract and Chuck found a way to ruin it for her, or because her lack of comprehension of his character, of who he was deep down, was going to drive her insane.

Carefully, Blair placed her half-drunk milk on a coaster and stood, backing away from the delicate cup as if it were likely to shatter into a dozen pieces to punish her for rejecting the sentiment behind it.

They avoided one another for most of the morning, until she had a question.

"Chuck."

He didn't glance up from that night's guest list.

"Nate is your best friend. You don't even like Tripp. If Tripp is here, where's Nate?"

"Nate is being hosted by the management of the New York Palace."

"And you own the Palace."

"Correct."

"You're backing both horses," she guessed, and was rewarded by the flicker of an eyelid in her direction.

"And you claim to have ridden both."

She turned away.

_**~#~**_

Serena gripped Nate's clammy hand in both of hers, which were equally damp. She hadn't dressed up for this most significant of days because she knew he wouldn't want her to and because she wasn't Blair. Serena van der Woodsen did her best work in skinny jeans and Rich Rocks jewellery, not skirt suits and headbands. She'd made two circuits of the opulent room which contained Nate's campaign team, a selection of his sponsors and a selection of her 'friends' too. They wore cocktail dresses and draped themselves over couches and politicians at Serena's request, acting both as ornaments and instruments: their Valley Girl accents and giggles lightened the atmosphere, and their disappearances into the suite's other rooms with last year's mayoral candidates or one of Forbes' Thirty Under Thirty might be useful to Nate someday.

"Yes!" She squealed when the newsreader announced for Nate halfway through the day. "_Yes_!"

"There are still hours to go."

"It's in the bag, Nate."

"Serena." Nate waited to speak while she curled her fingers underneath his chin and kissed him. He smiled when their noses bumped together, but went on, "You're amazing, but Tripp –"

"But Tripp has Blair."

"Yes."

"And Blair Waldorf never comes in second." Serena considered for a moment, chewing her lip, then shook her head. "But this isn't about who's prom queen or chair of the outreach committee. This is the voting public of New York who you've canvassed, who've met you, who like you for you, not for who you're married to. It's in the bag, Nate. All we have to do is wait."

_**~#~**_

The majority of Blair's academic and charitable achievements had been accomplished through hard work and determination, but sometimes, even Harold Waldorf's Blair-Bear didn't get what she wanted. She binged on Lady Godiva and Pierre Hermé, maxed out her credit card, pretended she'd gotten over the disappointment and then went about getting through foul means what she couldn't get through fair. Her nails gouged crescent moons in her palms when the newsreader pre-emptively announced for Nate, but she said nothing.

Instead, she went into the bathroom, locked the door behind her and messaged an ex-boyfriend of Serena's who used to captain the St. Jude's swim team.

"It doesn't mean anything," she told Tripp.

"She said I was flagging, Blair. _Flagging_."

"You're exhausted, Tripp, not flagging. You need out of this room, you need fresh air and food. Come on." She nudged him companionably with her elbow. "I'll buy you one of those unsanitary street corner hotdogs you like so much."

"I don't have time for that!"

"Make time. You're no use to anyone until you've calmed down and got some food in your stomach. We'll walk down by the water. We'll talk. We'll plan."

Blair paid for the hotdog but made him take it from the pot-bellied vendor. Cleanliness was next to godliness, after all. Next, she wiped the waterside railing before leaning on it and looking out over the Hudson. The wind whipped her hair back from her face and coloured her cheeks.

Beside her, Tripp was as grey as ash.

"What do you propose I do?"

"Something will come up."

"That's not an answer!"

She smiled complacently at him, though the smell of the hotdog was making her nauseous. "Trust me. Something will come up right about…now."

Bystanders would later say it happened too fast to see how the good-looking, square-jawed young man ended up in the water. What stuck in their minds was congressional candidate Tripp Vanderbilt diving into the river without a second's thought and reaching him, towing him back to shore and hauling him up onto the dock. His windswept wife rushed to his side, going down on her knees and dialling nine one one before anyone else could, apparently oblivious to the arm in the soaking sleeve her husband had wrapped around her shoulders to reassure her of his safety.

No one knew exactly what had happened, and they ate it up.

Blair feigned first surprise and then pride at Tripp's bravery, expressions three and fourteen from her run as Countess Olenska in _The Age of Innocence_. She waited patiently while he was cross-examined by the EMTs and the press, then hustled him into a cab. She was dying to get back to the Empire and to be in the room when his campaign team saw the bulletin. Everyone was happy, from Tripp to New York One to a wannabe filmmaker in a Navajo patterned tent who was hawking her footage to the highest bidder. The Spectator would be after that footage too, she imagined, so they could blow up a grainy screencap and print it next to a victory party picture of Mr and Mrs Vanderbilt beaming into the lens. Chuck would sell more papers, so even he should be happy.

But good news travelled faster than the traffic in Midtown. The staff of the Empire met them in the lobby with a round of applause, and an explosion of cheering nearly knocked them backwards upon entering the penthouse. Blair stepped back to allow Tripp to enjoy the spotlight, ducking into the kitchen in search of a dishtowel for her drenched arm. Shivering a little, she peeled off her blazer and arranged it so it would drip into the sink.

"My en suite is at your disposal."

"I couldn't."

"Yes, you can."

She hesitated. He was between her and the door, and besides, Tripp was wetter than she was, and besides, she didn't want to owe him anything, and besides, taking a single step in his direction felt impossible just then. Blair's scheme had made her feel herself again, and she'd grown used to associating those parts of herself which didn't fit with her political princess persona – the snark, the scheming, the inflexibility about getting her own way which could be characterised as stubbornness or strength – with him, blaming him for bringing them out in her. She didn't want to stand trembling in front of him, awkwardly wanting him, waiting for him to strike and wishing him a million miles away at the same time. She didn't want to strip off her clothes and stand naked in a room where he did the same either.

And she did.

"Thank you."

"Of course."

Chuck was silent after that, letting her slip past him. It turned him on to see her cold, irrationally, remembering the way she'd shaken on the porch when he'd kissed her. She'd been cold when she'd led him to her bedroom, and it had been he who'd put socks on her feet to warm her but had taken off everything else. He'd have to gut the bathroom when she was gone, put in new fixtures and fittings, smash the tiles and change their colour so he wouldn't think about Blair bracing her hands against them as hot water ran down her back and steam flushed her cheeks and lips. He bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself thinking about her glowing pink, the curves of her small breasts and the more pronounced curve of her small belly.

His cell phone vibrated, in his pocket, a warning from posterity not to be led around by his lower body.

"What?"

"I'm sorry, Mr Bass." His voice had come out harsher than he'd intended, because he was aroused, because he was irritated, because he had a craving for scotch and the oblivion between another woman's thighs. "But there's a Ms Abrams at the front desk asking to see Mr Vanderbilt. She says she has evidence the rescue this afternoon was faked."

Chuck swore, snarled, pushed a hand through his hair. "Send her to an empty room with a fully stocked bar. I'll meet her there."

"Should I contact Mr Vanderbilt, or…"

"No."

Vanessa Abrams was very pleased with herself. She'd spent her years at a commune in Vermont living by the rules of organic produce and moral integrity, which had never made her rich. What was a filmmaker without the cash to make films? It was lucky her boho style was in by the time she arrived in New York, that she had an attractive face and a full mouth and had learnt at a young age how to wind men around her little finger. She'd made enough contacts by dating privileged Columbia students who believed she could help them find themselves or that her alternativeness would piss off their parents to be sure of work and funding when she graduated from NYU; what the city had taught her, however, was that you could never be too rich or too thin and, as the latter wasn't a problem thanks to all that organic produce, she was working hard on the former.

Tripp Vanderbilt was going to be her meal ticket to Syria, to Haiti, to her own table in STK and to the heights of the Brooklyn boy made good she still loved.

But it wasn't Tripp Vanderbilt who was waiting for her in a luxurious suite on one of the upper floors, a glass of scotch in his obviously manicured, masculine hand. She couldn't help herself.

She pouted.

"Chuck Bass," he informed her, though she already knew. Everybody knew.

"I asked for Tripp Vanderbilt."

"Well, you got me," Chuck Bass drawled, taking her in with as much interest as if she were something nasty on the sidewalk and swilling his scotch around and around in its tumbler. "Take a seat."

"I'm not talking to anyone but Tripp Vanderbilt."

"If you want payment for what you have, you'll sit."

Vanessa sat.

"Explain."

She adjusted the heavy jade bangle on her right wrist. "I was filming Vanderbilt and his wife, working on a fluff piece for my blog. The guy who 'fell' was in the background of my shot. I saw him jump off the dock into the water, get into a prime position and then start shouting and waving his arms. Tripp Vanderbilt is no hero. He paid that guy to pretend to need rescuing when he was behind in the polls, and it had the desired effect. New York is singing his praises. It would be such a shame, don't you agree, if someone were to release evidence showing he's a phony."

"So 'someone' is looking to sell her footage."

"Uh-huh."

"And all the copies and distributing rights?"

"For the right price." Vanessa leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, deliberately revealing an inch more of thigh to gauge his reaction: there was none. Chuck leaned back likewise and regarded her from beneath lowered lids, but it was a glance of condescension, not attraction.

"How much?"

The figure she mentioned was pitiful. She'd clearly never blackmailed anyone before, not anyone with the money to pay her off, and especially not a newspaper editor who'd snorted coke off supermodels and who was rumoured to have pushed his father off a roof.

"Done."

"What?"

"Done. Cash or wire transfer?"

"You're giving me the money? Just like that?"

"As soon as you give me your memory card."

She shook her head teasingly from side to side and bit down on her plump lower lip. Vanessa Abrams wore expensive, berry-coloured gloss which was certainly not organic. "As soon as you pay me."

He didn't so much as blink but suddenly, magically, there was a manila envelope being stretched out towards her. It was all she could do not to snatch it from him. Her patience, when she did coolly accept it from him, was rewarded by the flash of green peeping out from under the flap.

"It's a pleasure to do business with you, Mr Bass."

He didn't blink, and he didn't smile. "The memory card. Please."

With a sigh, as if he should have been more interested in dating or fucking her than getting what he'd paid thousands of dollars for, Vanessa dug around in her deceptively weathered tote and pulled out her camera. She extracted the memory card and laid it temptingly in her palm, making him touch her to take it. He was no Dan Humphrey – no one else had his mind – but he could've showed her a good time, of that she had no doubt. Was he being faithful to someone? A secret girlfriend? A secret spouse? She toyed with the idea of a blog post on the subject and regretted not recording their interview.

"Why do you care so much about Tripp Vanderbilt?" She inquired, curious.

"I don't."

"But –"

"Security will escort you off the premises, Ms Abrams."

_**~#~**_

A party was in full swing in the ballroom downstairs even before the votes were counted and the Empire's occupants, as well as those of the state of New York, learnt the name of their new congressman: all Tripp's success did was make it more raucous. William Vanderbilt had materialised like a genie and was steering his grandson around the room, introducing him to those he hadn't met and reacquainting him with those he had, whose names he would have forgotten but for Blair's photographic memory. She stood aloof, smirking like a pregnant Cheshire cat, now dressed in the deep purple of a queen or empress.

Chuck took hold her arm and and led her into the empty bar next door. She acquiesced only to prevent a scene.

When he let her go, her eyes went immediately opaque. "Bass."

"It was you, wasn't it?"

"I don't know what you're –"

"Vanderbilt River Rescue, Hudson Hero, that stunt with Tripp down by the river. It was just sloppy enough not to look staged, and he isn't smart enough to engineer that. You couldn't guarantee he'd dive into the water, but you were the one who led him there to try your luck."

"You can't prove it was a setup."

"I have a videotape that says otherwise, bought at great expense from a hippie on the fringes of being a hooker who believes she's the next big thing. Do you realise what you almost did? Do you?!"

"I almost – no, I _actually_ got my husband elected!"

"Under false pretences!" He swept his arm wide, indicating the celebration going on beyond the dividing wall. "How would any of the people in there feel if they found out Hudson Hero was your scheme? How would the voters feel? How would Tripp feel?"

"Tripp may not have planned it, but he participated! In any case, we both know how much store you set by Tripp's feelings. You requested the breaking of his marriage vows, as I recall."

Chuck hissed in a breath through clenched teeth. "You can't keep playing this game, Blair, pretending we both didn't want –"

"Don't you dare preach to me about games! You bought that tape to save me, to play the hero, and now you've come to collect your reward!" Blair's cheeks were red hot, and she pressed one palm to the coolness of the bar top and the other to her face. After hours on her feet, hours of waiting for the axe to fall, she was starving, overtired and no longer very steady.

"Sit down."

"I don't need you to take care of me."

"Sit down before I make you."

"We're just going to keep having this same fight, Chuck," she snapped, refusing to even glance towards the barstool. "How has what I'm saying not yet penetrated that thick skull of yours? What you say, what you do, what you command me to do doesn't matter. I get you, at last. You're kind to me when it suits you and when it seems like you might get something back, but just like you told me, other than that, all bets are off. Tripp will give the Spectator exclusives until kingdom come and you'll probably be the first to print pictures of my baby, but you're not getting anything else from me. You're not my boyfriend or my friend and you are most definitely not my husband. You can't control me by tricking me into thinking you care."

"You're going to wish I didn't care." His tone was deceptively quiet, deceptively even. His boutonniere was gone, lost somewhere during the day, and there was nothing gentle or gentlemanlike in his appearance now.

"I've heard it all before. Go ahead. Ruin my marriage. Wreck my dreams. I dare you."

He was all talk, like every other man she'd ever met.

Every man was the same, and every man was after the same thing.

She tossed her hair and exited with her head high, her heels tapping briskly on the floorboards. She didn't sit down but danced the night away with her elated, elected husband, laughing at everything he said, beaming at every reporter who quizzed her on her dress, her emotions, her second trimester. It got too much shortly after midnight, and by one she was curled up in her own bed with the journal in which she recorded her greatest triumphs when Dorota knocked on the door.

"What is it?"

"A messenger, Miss Blair."

The box she brought in was brown and nondescript with no indication as to who had sent it. Blair nearly broke a nail tearing off the tape and found two items within, one of which was a folded piece of paper. On it were four words: _there are no copies_. Tucked inside the fold was a tiny piece of plastic, damaged beyond repair.

"Nothing else?"

There had to be more. There had to be strings attached. He'd never denied that he expect more.

He'd never affirmed it, but he'd never denied it either.

"No, Miss Blair."

It was all wrong. No strings, no control, no telling signature for the messenger to see and gossip about. There had to be copies. That would make sense. That was what she'd do. But why lie to her? He'd promised to take everything away from her, and that hadn't been a lie. The baby shifted and kicked, and because of that, and against her will, Blair trusted him. She trusted Chuck, who hadn't exposed their affair, who hadn't exposed the setup, who burst in unannounced whenever and wherever he shouldn't be. She'd dried off with the fluffy towels in his personal bathroom and recognised the scent of his cologne. She hated it. She needed to exorcise it, this insidious trust she'd been ignorant of only a few hours earlier. Why would he send her the tape without asking for something in return? Why did he care so much?

Blair retrieved her phone from the nightstand but, as with Serena, she couldn't actually bring herself to speak to him.

She didn't have the courage.

_Thank you for setting me free_, she wrote instead. _– B_.

Building walls was easy for her. Breaking them down, it seemed, was easy for him.

* * *

**_Thanks to: _stilettomafia, Iamstillinsane, Rf, Moonflower26, BlackPeonyxX, alissa-jackie, TaraWayland, CBfanhere, eckomoon, Grace, olimgossip, heyeileeen, lena-lena-lena, Lisa, notoutforawalk, M, champylin, aliceeeebeth, Littl' Minx, Smartinswho, Rossie, Nikki999, Dimples84, Guest _and_ Grish.**


	16. An Inconvenient Truth

**16. An Inconvenient Truth**

"My boy." William Vanderbilt shook his head in apparent amazement. He sat at the head of a table groaning with food, his grandson and granddaughter-in-law at the foot. The loose skin at the edges of his eyes was crinkled into a dozen miniature smiles. The smile on his mouth was broad but restrained, appropriate for the occasion. "I'm so proud of you."

"Thank you, Grandfather."

"Nathaniel is young," he went on, even though no one had mentioned Nate. "He doesn't need this. You – you need this. You were meant for this, and now it's yours." His beam brightened a few more watts. "My grandson, Congressman William Vanderbilt III."

But Tripp would be more than his grandson now. William's political interests would flow through the conduit of Tripp, and Tripp would get greedier, and William would get more powerful, and the Vanderbilt family tree and bank balance would flourish. Blair prophesied all this from her seat at the bottom of the table, her lips discreetly coloured, her jewellery delicate but expensive. Not wishing to insult William's hospitality, she'd accepted a cup of tea when she'd rather have had coffee; her hands were shaking.

This was it.

A long tendril of hair slid out from behind her ear and bounced beside her cheek.

"And Blair." He was smiling that smooth, confident smile.

That winning smile.

"I was surprised to hear from Tripp that you plan on leaving us." The patriarch's expression remained the same, but those smiling crinkles disappeared. "We've discussed this before. I know you're a sensible young woman, and you've always been a sensible young woman, which is why I approved your marriage to my grandson a year and a half ago. The contract which you signed then holds today: you will have no right to any of Tripp's assets, should you seek a divorce, and any and all holdings in your name that have been financed by your husband will revert to him. Moreover, your child will be fatherless." He shook his head again, but this time his amazement was apparently at her stupidity, not his grandson's success.

Blair twirled her engagement ring around her finger, making a point. "My child has a father," she returned calmly, though on the inside she was anything but. "But he's not in this room, and he's nothing more to me than a DNA donor. Whether I stay married to Tripp or not, my baby will still be fatherless."

"Our child will never be fatherless," Tripp told her vehemently, reaching across the table to grip her hand. "Not if you stay with me."

"It seems very selfish," William remarked. "To allow your desire for independence to deprive your child of a loving, caring home with a father who will never treat it as if he is anyone other than his father." He methodically sliced a piece of Parma ham into equally sized strips and began to do the same to a piece of melon. "Surely independence shouldn't come at the cost of your child's happiness?"

Locking her teeth against her temper, Blair extricated her hand from Tripp's grasp and tucked it with the other, out of reach beneath the table. "If marriage to your grandson has taught me anything," she replied. "It's the importance of independence, the importance of not being reliant on anyone, of making your own way in the world, reaping the rewards and paying the costs you and only you are responsible for. I said my child will never be fatherless, and _she_ never will. Now I'm telling you she will be loved and cared for wherever she is, because I'll be there too. Because I'm her mother." She raised her chin, and something less glossy and more visceral peered out from behind her face and made her husband blink. "She deserves a chance to be her own person, not who the Vanderbilt family will tell her to be. _I_ deserve to be my own person."

"So you'd deny her everything."

"So I'd offer her everything." She no longer considered it weak to cry – to feel – but she still denied William Vanderbilt the sight of her tears. She trembled and seethed but she refused to cry. "And she'll be brought up by a mother who isn't ashamed of herself, who doesn't believe she needs a man and his name to make her matter. I forgot that. I forgot I was Blair Waldorf."

"Meaning?"

"I'm Blair Waldorf." In Blair's mind, she was sixteen again, eating yoghurt on the steps of the Met, surveying her kingdom.

She wore a yellow headband.

Her stockings were white.

"That's all the explanation anyone needs."

Brunch was concluded.

It should be different – stepping out onto the drive with Tripp behind her, for once, Blair expected trumpets, confetti, cheering crowds…or whatever their mental equivalent was. Separation, divorce, severing the necessary ties in order to be herself again was her way back to way back when, when she'd made plans and choices and hadn't accepted anyone else's word but her own. It should be different, better.

She should be happier.

But she wasn't.

"When are you leaving?"

When she turned to look at him, he looked right through her.

"Don't be like that. This has nothing to do with you."

"Doesn't it?"

"No." That triggered the first sense of something, the first hint that she'd made the right decision. The baby in Blair's belly kicked lazily, giving her the odd sensation of a tide going in and out inside her. "It's all about me."

"Damn it, Blair."

They'd spent a year together, and he wouldn't even walk her to the car. She didn't mind. He'd remember his manners when he announced her defection to the media, but Tripp Vanderbilt was a man like any other. She'd wounded his pride, so he marched away from her, shoulders hunched against the wind.

Blair listened to the crunch of fallen leaves beneath the heels of her shoes. She felt a cold snap in the breeze which picked up, whining in her ears. She was so engrossed by the question of what to do with her new freedom that the chauffeur's question made her jump.

"Where to, Mrs Vanderbilt?"

"The Empire Hotel," she answered crisply. "After one short stop-off."

The elevator pinged. Chuck didn't waste time with words of greeting that might affect his shot, and followed through to smoothly sink the ball a second later. The Spectator was launching its own range of Sunday supplements, and he'd been in meetings with advertisers all day. Luckily, most advertising executives weren't adverse to talks over a few games of pool, several bottles of vintage champagne and an hour of privacy with the Brazilian triplets who'd kept him so well entertained a few years earlier. He'd _had_ to put them on the payroll, and the Portuguese tongue-twisters they taught to his investors had proved it was money well spent.

"Chuck? Are you here?"

He spun around, heard her steps, and then he saw her face: teeth sunk into her lower lip, eyes taking their time to explore the space before fixing on him. On her arm swung a glossy green purse, and in her hands was a neatly wrapped gift.

"For me?"

"It's a bottle of olive oil." Her mouth quirked up at one corner as she placed it on the pool table. "I couldn't find a real olive branch on such short notice."

"No live dove?"

"You don't ask for much, do you?"

He laughed, she laughed. It was easy. It was much easier to laugh and play than to acknowledge what was really going on, what was inside both of them but only visible on her. Chuck pushed pale blue polka-dotted sleeves further up his forearms and picked up the bottle, tilting it towards Blair like he was tipping his hat. "Thank you." The cool air had come in with her; he retrieved his jacket from the back of a chair and slipped his arms into it, aware that his tie was askew and that he and the suite probably smelt of Dom Perignon and Britney Spears perfume. It was no place for a child, or for a woman whose gaze was curious but who for once wasn't yelling at him or tying his guts in knots, a woman whose beauty had been lost when her innocence was.

"What are you doing here, Blair?"

"I haven't been fair to you," she began.

"An nderstatement."

"But you haven't been fair to me either."

"Another understatement."

"I didn't understand." She put down her purse down, reached up to fiddle with the clip holding back her hair. "Why you'd want to be a father, all of a sudden. As you've probably surmised, I only find desires and wishes acceptable if they've been held for years and submitted to me in writing. In triplicate. That's why I didn't understand you wanting to be a father. You're not the type of person who wants to be a father, but then, it's never even entered my mind to want to be a mother. Now, it's inevitable. It's impossible to imagine it being any other way."

"You're never going to be just a mother," said Chuck, running his finger over the bow which topped the olive oil.

"I know. But I guess it's simpler for me to see myself that way because she eats what I eat, she responds when I speak. The connection between the two of you is different. I couldn't see it or touch it, so I pretended it wasn't there." As dispassionately as she could, Blair brushed away the tears gathering along her lash line. "I ignored that connection like I ignored ours. I'm sorry."

"So what are you saying?"

Not what he thought she meant.

Not what he hoped she meant.

"I'm leaving Tripp." It came out in a rush, followed by a sigh. "He shouldn't have to be with me just because I'm having a baby, now that Serena's out of the equation. The same applies to you. You shouldn't have to be with me just because I'm having our baby."

Not what he hoped, and not enough.

Chuck looked away from her as the rush of anticipation receded, leaving him cold. "You keep using the word 'should', like it matters. Basses don't live their lives ruled by shoulds. What do you want?" He pinned her in place with his stare, made him her world for as long as the moment lasted. It worked for hours, sometimes days on the women he didn't care about but who cared about him anyway. It would work on Blair for a little while. "What do you need?" He took a step closer, smelt Chanel and warmth, something which came from the pulse jumping in her neck. "From me?"

She didn't even back away when he brushed that pulse with the very tips of his fingers.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing at all."

He leaned in. Blair took several steadying breaths, determined to be sensible, rational and resist him.

"Spend the day with me."

"Okay."

Apparently, sensible, rational resistance has stayed downstairs in the car.

"Not in bed," she clarified.

"Obviously not."

"Doing what?"

"Going where we like. Doing what we like."

"Where?"

"You tell me."

"Central Park," she decided at once. "Bethesda Terrace."

Now neither seduction nor destruction would be necessary, Chuck straightened with an incredulous expression. "You have the chance to go anywhere in one of the greatest cities in the world for culture, music, art, opulence…and you choose that tourist trap? Why?"

Blair only smiled. "Because it's raining."

That was all the explanation anyone needed.

Her hair was plastered to her skull by the time they got beneath the shelter of the sandstone roof. She'd never seen Chuck so unkempt – the turned up collar of his trench coat had provided little protection, and his hair was black and too long, sticking to the nape of his neck and dripping down his back. Blair stood a little way back from the arches, unmoving, listening to the rain and wondering if it were the precursor to thunder. It was strange to be there without Serena beside her, stranger still that Chuck sensed her mood and stayed silent, gazing out at the Angel of the Waters and the lillies below it as raindrops bounced back off the fountain's glassy surface.

"What happened here?" He asked.

"She came here when she was upset or scared. She used to sit here for hours. Sometimes I would sit with her. We didn't talk a lot of the time, we just sat. There aren't usually any tourists around here when it rains. It was like our own private palace, just us waiting the way she was feeling to pass."

"What about your feelings?"

"What do they matter?" She whirled as if the question were an insult, colour flooding her cheeks. "You don't understand. It's always been Serena. It'll always be Serena. I don't choose to fail to comprehend myself, I fail because I'm so used to feeling what she feels and wanting what she wants and hoping that if she's happy, I will be too. I even married the man she loved to keep her happy! I don't understand what I feel for you because apart from matters of academia and family, I've never had to think for myself! I've never had to untangle my emotions and try to work out which is loyalty to Serena and which is what's right for me." Blair jammed her fists into her pockets and exhaled harshly. Water trickled down her temple. "I know she wants you for me. I know I lose myself when we're alone, just the two of us. Which is really me, Chuck? You tell me."

Chuck studied her, her stubborn hands, her soft wet skin.

"When are you leaving him?"

"Not now."

"When?"

"Soon."

"I don't believe you're incapable of comprehending yourself." His voice was low-pitched, neutral. "You're not that hard to read. You made the choice to fail so you don't have to feel things you can't control or blame on somebody else. You're afraid to put your happiness in the hands of another person, so you don't let anyone in – so you pull me in with one hand and push me away with the other."

"That's not true!"

"Prove it."

"How?"

"Serena's not here. If you kissed me now and meant it, without knowing how I would respond, you would feel how you felt about it and have no one to blame for that but yourself."

She saw her own reflection in his black gold eyes, the way he saw her.

She balked.

"Blackmailing me into kissing you is hardly going to prove my own power of agency."

"It won't make me happy." Condescension radiated out from him like heat. "And presumably it won't make you happy either. That means the situation we're in is bereft of emotion, so there's no one for you to please. There's no better way in which to prove my point. What do you have to lose? Your marriage? Your reputation? Even the paparazzi stay inside when it rains."

Blair hesitated. She doubted the logic of his argument like she doubted him, like she doubted herself.

Lightning flashed in the sky over Central Park.

She made a snap decision.

Without ceremony, Blair marched across the short distance between them, gripped Chuck's lapels and dragged his head down to hers. He was irritatingly still, standing like a statue until she kicked him hard in the shin. _That_ had an effect. He gripped her waist hard, and she became as breathless and warm as if he were liquor. She paused, considered, accepted: _Chuck Bass makes me breathless_. _Chuck Bass makes me warm_. She took another breath and shared it with him, each inhaling the other and beginning the business in earnest. It was as confusing as she remembered, perplexing because he was hard and soft and sweet and mean and she was firm and gentle and kind and cruel. Because she forgot to count the minutes as they ticked past, or to hear the thunder. Because the taste of the kiss took her back to the cabin and the fire and his stare on her face and her neck and her collarbone as she changed stood or sat or skied.

_Chuck Bass makes me feel like a weak little girl_.

She broke away, and he pressed his mouth to a spot beneath her ear. "Well?"

"What?" The terrace was spinning.

"Did you mean it?"

"I did."

"And now, you're…"

"I'm going to take you home," she announced, surprising him. "And you can take that look off your face. It's not for that."

_**~#~**_

"This is a public relations disaster."

"Grandfather, I –"

"We won't discuss the foolishness of prostituting your wife and additional idiocy of putting her in a position to get pregnant. That's in the past. What I cannot stress enough is how stupid it would be to grant her a divorce."

"I can't stop her." It sounded sulky, immature.

"We paid some of the best lawyers in the country to write that contract, and even more to keep quiet about it. One young woman's struggle for independence would make a good summer blockbuster, but it's not my concern. It doesn't benefit this family, so it won't go ahead."

"How do we stop it?"

"_You_. You will stop it, and God only knows what will happen to public opinion of you if you don't succeed."

"Grandfather –"

"God only knows," he continued, sitting back in his chair like a king on his throne. "What will happen to my opinion of you if you don't succeed."

_**~#~**_

White and black floor tiles.

Red, veined Corinthian columns.

Artwork, wide windows, the light scent of furniture polish.

It all hit Blair like a slap as the elevator doors opened with a familiar chime. Eleanor paid for the penthouse was kept clean, aired and stocked with fresh flowers, but the Waldorf family didn't live there anymore. It had lost its air of business and use, but it was still home to Eleanor's daughter; a dozen photographs documenting every event from Blair's birth to her high school graduation were neatly arranged atop the grand piano. She imagined a dozen phantom versions of her younger self flouncing down the stairs to demand what she was doing back there.

_What are you doing here_,_ Serena_?

…_Serena_?

…_Nate_?

…_Mother_?

"The belly of the beast," Chuck stated sardonically, rocking back on his heels as he surveyed the foyer. "It suits you."

"Refined?"

"Restrained."

"You're a guest, not a psychoanalyst."

"You're fortunate I do house calls."

Blair allowed herself the luxury of a chuckle as she removed her drenched coat and dropped it at the foot of the stairs. She walked to the top of the first section of the staircase, then propped her elbows on the bannister and glanced down. He waited, metaphorically in Hell if she represented Heaven. The unspoken something or nothing between them was like a puppet string – she could pull, and he'd rise. He could pull, and she'd fall.

"Come up."

"Why?"

"There's something you need to see."

They went up together, and he opened the door for her once she'd directed him.

"So this is your bed."

She ignored him, and got down on her hands and knees to drag out an oversized box from underneath it. The bump impaired her and concerned him, but he knew better than to offer help or direction.

Flipping the lid, Blair drew out the holiest relic in her collection. She smoothed her fingers over the cover and memories welled up, but she focused on standing up, rearranging herself on the edge of the coffee-and-cream-coloured bedspread and patting the space beside her.

"This is my scrapbook," she told him. "This is how my life was supposed to be."

First of all, her parents were supposed to be together. They were supposed to welcome their first grandchild together, and although Blair loved both Roman and Cyrus, the latter had taken her father's place and the former had made the fierce love his Blair-Bear would forever have for her daddy difficult. She'd done Cotillion with Nate, but the awkward, painful passage rite which had taken place in a suite at the New York Palace afterwards hadn't been planned or commemorated in these pages. Their wedding hadn't happened, even though her groom had been similar in appearance and identical in family. They hadn't said their 'I do's on her father's estate in France, bathed in golden sunshine and attended by scores of butterflies. Her dress had been approved by someone else. Her vows had been written by someone else.

That life was supposed to be so easy, so well-ordered.

When had everything gotten so screwed up?

"Blair." Chuck stopped her when her page turning became clumsy and automatic, threatening to tear the heavy card stock with its obsessively coloured and decorated figures. "Why are you showing me this?"

She looked at him and didn't look away, not even when the first tear splashed down her cheek. "Nothing is the way it was supposed to be. Everything I've done since high school has been wrong. Not going to school, marrying Tripp, changing my colourist, shopping from different racks in Saks…it was all wrong. Then there's you…and it's more than likely that you're another mistake. I can't take another mistake, Chuck, which is why I can't go where I like, do what I like. I'm my own worst enemy. I can't kiss you and mean it and feel how I feel about it, because what I'm feeling might be yet another thing that's wrong." Another tear followed the first, perfectly formed, the act of breaking down on the bed she'd last slept in the night before her wedding perfectly executed. I can't ask you to wait while I take life slowly, while I weigh up the pros and cons of everything, while I make sure everything I do is what's best for me…and for the baby too, I guess. That's not fair."

"Blair –"

"Don't hope for me," she went on stubbornly. "Don't hope that you and I can work, because chances are, one of us will ruin it. That's all. That's it."

The End.

And no one lived happily ever after.

"All I hear," Chuck began, when Blair was quiet again. "Whenever you speak, is that you're scared. Being alone is not a safe option, so you're leaving Tripp 'soon'. _I_ am not a safe option, so you bet against me every time. You're not prepared to risk letting me in and getting your heart broken. You're not ready."

"I'm never going to be ready to have my heart broken."

"Then you will never have me."

They regarded each other, neither comprehending nor condemning his stubbornness or hers, his sadness or hers.

"I can't ask you to wait," she repeated, avoiding the real issue.

"And I can't promise not to break your heart," he returned, pushing it. "What you have to decide is if we're worth the risk."

* * *

**_Thanks to:_ Marine7620, stilettomafia, lena-lena-lena, TaraWayland, alissa-jackie, Grace, Rf, Michelle Dontcare, Guest, Lisa, notoutforawalk, Guest, Iamstillinsane _and_ lovetvtomuchxo._ My review count has fallen dramatically of late, so I hope that you're all still with me__ or that I can lure you back if you've strayed...baby, I can change!  
_**


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